|  Posted 9 years ago

Addition of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) to formula in the first weeks of life does not offer neuro-developmental advantages to pre-term infants up to age 18 months.

English researchers say they cannot, however, exclude a later advantage in neuro-development from the early LCPUFA feeding.

The investigators found a non-significant advantage in developmental scores at 18 months, most markedly in infants of less than 30 weeks" gestation. "Additional study is needed to test whether there is indeed an underlying benefit or whether this difference was attributable to chance," say investigators from the Childhood Nutrition Research Centre at the Institute of Health in London.

"It is particularly important that this cohort be followed up at an age when more detailed and specific testing is possible." They note the follow-up is planned.

The researchers tested the balanced addition of LCPUFA in a double-blind, randomised trial with 195 formula-fed, pre-term infants at two British neonatal units. The infants received pre-term formula with and without preformed LCPUFA.

Participants weighed less than 1,750 grams at birth, with gestation less than 30 weeks. A group of 88 breast milk-fed infants acted as a reference group.

The investigators used three main outcome measures: the Bayley Mental Developmental Index (MDI) and the Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI) at 18 months, and the Knobloch, Passamanick and Sherrard's Developmental Screening Inventory at nine months.

They also included five safety outcome measures: anthropometry at nine and 18 months, tolerance, infection, necrotising enterocolitis and death.

They report no significant differences in developmental scores between the groups of randomised infants. But those fed LCPUFA-supplemented formula showed a non-significant, 2.6-point advantage in MDI and PDI at 18 months.

A greater but still non-significant advantage was observed in infants below 30 weeks" gestation.

The LCPUFA-supplemented babies were shorter than controls at 18 months. There were no other significant short- or long-term differences in safety outcome measures.