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Is it any coincidence that the most laidback people I've ever met hail from Brazil, land of fish and coconuts?
The mellowness of Brazilians came to mind when I read a study on prenatal stress to be published next month in the International Journal of Neurodevelopmental Medicine. The researchers, including lead author Carlos Galduróz, are biologists at Universidade Federal de São Paulo (in Brazil).
It's been long known that significant prenatal stress -- characterized by a blitz of the stress hormone cortisol -- harms a fetus. Prenatal stress results in an increased risk of premature birth and low birthweight. In humans, it's linked with anxiety, attention deficit disorder, impaired memory, low test scores in childhood, and depressive behavior in adulthood. Rats whose mothers are exposed to extreme stressors are likelier to have impaired motor skills and are slower to learn.
Intriguingly, there's evidence that the mother's diet might offset some of these disadvantages. A baby whose stressed-out mom ate "special" foods during pregnancy and lactation may fare better than one whose equally stressed -out mom ate a normal diet.
Galduróz and his colleagues were curious to know if the composition of fat in a prenatal diet might make the difference. So, during the equivalent of second and third trimester, they subjected some of the rats in their study to extreme stress -- restraint and bright lights for forty-finve minutes, three times daily. Some of these pregnant rats were fed a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids, the kind found in salmon, sardines, and other fish. Others were fed a diet high in saturated fatty acid from coconut milk. A third group ate normal rat chow.
The results?
As expected, babies of stressed-out moms had lower birth weights. The surprise came three weeks later: Babies whose moms ate fish oil or coconut fat diets during pregnancy and lactation gained weight quickly. So quickly, in fact, that they became the same weight as the babies whose moms weren't stressed during pregnancy. In other words, fish and coconut fats reversed the impact of low birthweight, a potentially dangerous effect of prental stress.
That's not all.
Babies exposed to prenatal stress were more active (restless) than other pups if their moms were on a regular or coconut-oil diet. Interestingly, if a stressed-out mother was on a fish oil diet, her pups were not more restless than those of pups with non-stressed moms.
In an earlier study by the same authors, adult rats whose moms ate a coconut fat or fish oil-based diet released fewer stress hormones (a reduced corticosteroid response) than rats whose moms ate a normal diet.
Many studies have shown that fish oil, omega-3s, modulate mood by reducing the stress response. This has been shown in rat studies, and also in many (but not all) human studies. Is it possible that when a mother consumes food containing omega-3s, her babies are less agitated? Are they happier? Of course, rodents express anxiety, neuroticism, and depression differently from human babies. But the healing effect of nutrients is fascinating. Do stressed-out moms on fish-and-coconut diets have happier, healthier babies than their equally stressed peers who don't eat as well?
For the real possibility that fish and coconut oil have prenatal physical and psychological perks, I link to a favorite recipe here. It's for moqueca, a stew made of fish and coconut fats, from Bahia, the Coconut Coast of Brazil.
*If you like this blog, click here for previous posts and here to read a description of my most recent book, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?, on the science behind love, sex, and attraction. If you wish, check out my forthcoming book, Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy.
