Fish oil supplementation improves docosahexaenoic acid status of malnourished infants

AIM—To investigate whether the lowdocosahexaenoic acid (DHA) status of malnourished, mostly breast fed,Pakistani children can be improved by fish oil (FO) supplementation.
METHODS—Ten malnourished children(aged 8-30 months) received 500 mg FO daily for nine weeks. Thesupplement contained 62.8 mol% (314mg) long chain polyunsaturatedfatty acids of the ω3 series (LCPUFAω3) and 22.5 mol% (112 mg)DHA. Seven FO unsupplemented children served as controls. Red bloodcell (RBC) fatty acids were analysed at baseline and at the study end.
RESULTS—FO supplementationaugmented mean (SD) RBC DHA from 2.27 (0.81) to 3.35 (0.76) mol%,without significantly affecting the concentrations of LCPUFAω6.Unsupplemented children showed no RBC fatty acid changes. One FOsupplemented child with very low initial RBC arachidonic acid showed aremarkable increase from 4.04 to 13.84 mol%, whereas another with highRBC arachidonic acid showed a decrease from 15.64 to 10.46 mol%.
CONCLUSION—FO supplementationimproves the DHA status of malnourished children. The supplement isapparently well absorbed and not exclusively used as a source of energy.