A recent study confirms that pregnant women who consume more fruit during pregnancy can boost their baby's cognitive development.
In 2016, a study published by the University of Alberta (Canada) revealed to us that babies born to mothers who consumed large quantities of fruit (6 7 servings per day ) during their pregnancy had much better results on cognitive tests at the age of one year. For this work, the researchers had studied data collected as part of the CHILD study (Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development ), which brings together more than 3,500 children and their families.
Although these results were considered very promising at the time, they did not necessarily confirm that alone fruit consumption had promoted the cognitive development of children . Other factors, not taken into account in this study, could possibly be part of the equation.
So to determine whether fruit was indeed (or not) the primary factor influencing infant cognition, the same researchers recently set out to replicate the results of the original study. .
As part of this work, the team of researchers led by Claire Scavuzzo focused on rats. “The present study aimed to experimentally test the effects of prenatal fruit juice exposure in a non-human and mammalian model of learning and memory “, can we read in Plos One .
During this work, some female rats had access to diluted tomato and orange juice throughout gestation, while others did not. than water (in addition to standard rodent chow). After the cubs were born and weaned, the researchers gave them several tests of learning, memory, and fear conditioning.
At the end of these experiments, the researchers measured no positive or negative effects on the spatial learning of young rats "fed" with fruit juice during pregnancy. On the other hand, they measured in this same group significant improvements in spatial memory and in memory of conditioned fear (less anxious) .
In other words, baby rats whose mothers had consumed a lot of fruit during gestation performed much better on cognitive tests than the others, according to the previous study.
Thus, in a controlled and isolated way, the researchers were able to confirm the positive role of prenatal exposure to fruit on the cognitive development of newborns.
“The idea that nutrition can impact mental health and cognition has only recently begun to gain traction, says study co-author Rachel Ward-Flanagan.People want to be able to give their children the best possible start in life, and based on our findings, it appears that a diet enriched with fruit be a possible way to do it .
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