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This study compared these children with those whose mothers took the recommended amount of choline, and the results showed that the recommended choline intake did not fully meet the needs of the fetal brain

"Our results show that adding choline to the standard prenatal vitamin regimen is beneficial for all people," said Barbara Strupp, a professor in the Department of Nutritional Science (DNS) and Psychology , "Prenatal choline supplementation improves children's sustained attention: a 7-year follow-up of a randomized controlled feeding trial", published in the "Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology" on December 28

The first author of this study is 19-year-old Dr.

Choline-found in egg yolks, lean meats, fish, poultry, beans, nuts and cruciferous vegetables-is absent in most prenatal vitamins, and more than 90% of pregnant women consume less than Recommended amount

For decades, studies using rodent models have shown that adding extra choline to the mother’s diet has long-term cognitive benefits for offspring

In the Cornell University study, all women consumed a prepared diet containing a specific amount of choline during the third trimester of pregnancy

When tested at the age of 7, the accuracy of female children in the 480 mg/day group decreased from the beginning to the end of the continuous attention task, while the female children in the 930 mg/day group maintained higher accuracy throughout the task

Strupp said: "By proving that maternal choline supplementation is good for the attention of human offspring, it is similar to

This new discovery builds on a previous study by the research team, which described the benefits of infancy

Few studies have evaluated the effects of maternal choline supplementation, and this is the first study to track children to school age

"By showing that the beneficial effects of prenatal supplementation continue into childhood, these findings illustrate the role of prenatal choline in planning children’s cognitive development

Research shows that current recommendations-including those for pregnant women-were formulated in 1998 and are based on the amount of choline needed to prevent liver dysfunction in men

Charlotte L.