Dr. Erickson's Blog

Breastfed Kids May Get Higher Test Scores

Dec. 20, 2010 -- Breastfeeding babies for longer than six months may give them a brain boost that lasts well into their school years, a new study suggests, and this benefit may be particularly important for boys.

The study, which was published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that 10-year-olds who were breastfed for longer than six months as infants scored higher on standardized math, reading, writing, and spelling tests than children who were breastfed for less than six months.

However, when researchers adjusted their findings to correct for other factors associated with breastfeeding that might also be influencing academic achievement, like the mother’s age, family income, and how often the children were read to at home, only breastfed boys continued to see an advantage.

Critics of the study, however, call its conclusions misleading and point out that it suffers from many of the same problems that have long plagued this area of research. Namely, that moms who breastfeed are typically older, have higher IQs, are wealthier, and are more educated than moms who don’t breastfeed.

That makes it difficult for researchers to determine whether breastfed kids do better on intelligence tests because they were breastfed or because they have greater socioeconomic advantages.

Boys May See a Bigger Benefit

“In actual fact, the benefits to boys of breastfeeding seem to be quite significant,” says the study’s author, Wendy H. Oddy, PhD, MPH, who is an associate professor at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, in Perth, Australia. “If they were breastfed for more than six months, they did much better in math, reading, writing, spelling, and all the subjects,” she says.

Researchers aren’t sure why boys may get bigger benefit from breastfeeding than girls, but one theory suggests that breastfeeding may improve speech clarity, particularly for boys, and better speech has been associated with improved reading ability.

Another theory is that breastfeeding may help boys, who normally lag in development behind girls, mature more quickly.

Or, experts say, hormonal differences might be at work.

Tracking the Impact of Breastfeeding

Oddy’s study has followed 2,868 children who were born in Australia in the early 1990s.

Her group measured standardized math, reading, writing, and spelling scores of the children in the study, who were 10 years old at the time.

When looking at boys and girls independently, the researchers found that predominant breastfeeding for 6 months or more was significantly associated with increased scores in math, reading, writing, and spelling for boys, but there was no effect found on test scores for girls for any subject.

“Maybe humans really do need all the fatty acids, nutrients, bioactive factors that they get from human milk,” Oddy says. “If you’re trying to help kids do the best that they can, in school and in life, why wouldn’t you breastfeed?”

Research Mixed

According to Miao Jiang, PhD, a maternal and child health researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a key problem with the Australian study is that when researchers asked parents for permission to link breastfeeding records to the child’s testing scores, many families opted out. The 980 who stayed in were generally from two-parent, higher-income families and were more likely to have older moms who breastfed longer than moms who didn’t participate in the study.

 “Therefore, the higher academic achievement found in this sample may quite likely be due to the advantaged socio-economic status, not breastfeeding,” Jiang says.

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20101219/breastfed-kids-may-get-higher-test-scores?page=2

Vitamin B12- The Energy Vitamin

Vitamin B12 is often referred to as the “energy vitamin” because it helps speed up your metabolism and boosts your energy levels.  Vitamin B12 is essential in the metabolism of fatty acids that are used in the maintenance of myelin, the protective sheath around the nerves.  This is crucial for maintaining a healthy central nervous system.  Because of its effect on overall metabolism, it is often associated with accelerated weight loss as well.  Conversely, Vitamin B12 deficiency can manifest in fatigue, slow reflexes, memory issues, anemia, weakness, and depression.  Unfortunately, it is estimated that 40% of Americans are deficient in Vitamin B12.

As with many vitamins, a distinction must be made between “normal” levels and “optimal” levels.  What is considered normal, or the USRDA (U.S. recommended daily allowance set by the FDA), is not necessarily what is optimal for overall health.  The RDA is merely the average recommendation for prevention of deficiency.  The RDA does not take into account gender, weight or age, and leaves a large margin of error for specific needs. 

The USRDA for Vitamin B12 is just 2.4 mcg/day.  This is merely to keep the average person from becoming deficient.  DailyDetox contains 50 mcg/day.  Combined with a proper diet, this level of supplementation will help keep Vitamin B12 levels in a more optimal range.

Vitamin B12 is also plays a critical role in red blood cell formation, DNA replication, neurological function, digestion, circulation, and control of homocysteine levels.  Elevated homocysteine levels are associated with high risk of stroke, coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. 

Vitamin B12 deficiency has been associated with depression and other cognitive disorders.  A study of 3,882 elderly men and women with depressive disorders revealed a 70% increase the likelihood of experiencing depression when one is B12 deficient.¹   Vitamin B12 supplementation has been shown to lessen the rate of brain wasting (shrinkage) in Alzheimer’s patients. ²
 
Further, while gastrointestinal problems are very common and there are a variety of contributing factors, inadequate Vitamin B12 levels can result in diarrhea, constipation, and abdominal pain.    

Vitamin B12 is most abundant in animal products, meat, eggs, fish, and dairy.  This presents a challenge for any vegetarian.  B12 is also found (in lesser amounts) in pecans, brazil nuts, almonds, and walnuts.  Regardless of one’s diet, daily supplementation with Vitamin B12 in Maximized Living’s DailyDetox is added insurance for your body, to not only meet the minimum requirements, but to truly thrive in a society where energy levels are easily drained.

¹ Tiemeier H, van Tuijl HR, Hofman A, Meijer J, Kiliaan AJ, Breteler MM. Vitamin B12, folate, and homocysteine in depression: the Rotterdam Study. Am J Psychiatry. 2002;159(12):2099-2101.
² Kelland K.  B vitamins found to halve brain shrinkage in old.  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6875CL20100908

Researchers now know that there is a critical link between the body’s central nervous system and the immune system.  Something chiropractic researchers have been aware of since the 1918 flu epidemic, when it was found that the rate of chiropractic patients was less than half that of non-chiropractic patients.

In 1974, physiologist Dr. I.M. Korr proposed that "spinal lesions" (similar to the vertebral subluxation complex) are associated with exaggerated sympathetic (a division of the autonomic nerve system) activity.^[1]

Sympathetic activity has been shown to release immune regulatory cells into the blood circulation, which alters immune function.  Drs. Murray, Irwin, and Reardon were the authors of the report that stated:

“Growing evidence suggests that immune function is regulated in part by the sympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nerve endings densely innervate lymphoid tissue such as the spleen, lymph nodes and the thymus, and lymphoid cells have beta 2 adregenergic receptors.” ^[2]

So, what they were saying is that the nervous system has a direct immune system effect through the nerve supply to the important immune system organs.

One of the most important studies was performed by Ronald Pero, Ph.D., chief of cancer prevention research at New York's Preventive Medicine Institute and professor of medicine at New York University.  It showed the positive effect that chiropractic care can have on the immune system and general health. 

Dr. Pero measured the immune systems of people under chiropractic care as compared to those in the general population and those with cancer and other serious diseases.  His initial three-year study was of 107 individuals who had been under chiropractic care for five years or more.  The chiropractic patients were found to have a 200% greater immune competence than those people who had not received chiropractic care, and they had 400% greater immune competence than those people with cancer and other serious diseases.  The immune system superiority of those under chiropractic care did not appear to diminish with age.  Dr. Pero stated:

“When applied in a clinical framework, I have never seen a group other than this chiropractic group to experience a 200% increase over the normal patients.  This is why it is so dramatically important.  We have never seen such a positive improvement in a group…”^[3]

The chiropractic immunology connection was strengthened in 1991 when Patricia Brennan, Ph.D., leading a team of researchers, conducted a study that found improved immune response in their test subjects following chiropractic treatment.  The study specifically demonstrated the “phagocytic respiratory burst of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) and monocytes were enhanced in adults that had been adjusted by chiropractors.” ^[4]  So, through chiropractic care, the function of the phagocytes, the white-blood cells that go on the search and destroy missions for the body, the ones that engulf and destroy bad cells, is enhanced.

Another important study was performed at the Life Chiropractic University, Sid Williams Research Center in 1994.  The researchers took a group of HIV positive patients and adjusted them over a six-month period.  What they found was that the “patients that were adjusted had a  forty-eight percent (48%) increase in the number CD4 cells (an important immune system component).”  These measurements were taken at the patients' independent medical center, where they were under medical supervision for the condition.  The control group (the patients that were not adjusted) did not demonstrate this dramatic increase in immune function, but actually experienced a 7.96% decrease in CD4 cell counts over the same period. ^[5]

Those are very impressive results with important implications, yet they were ignored.  You would think that we’d have seen it as front-page, headline news, or heard a special report about it.  However, as they say in the news business, “if it bleeds, it leads.”  (We were probably too busy watching OJ Simpson’s bizarre ride in the white SUV after his wife’s their pool boy’s murder.  You know ... the truly important stuff.)

Another paper published in 1987 found a connection between the autonomic nervous system and the immune system through endocrine channels.  Dr. Felton and his team of researchers reported that “the neurotransmitter, norepinephrine is present in sympathetic nerve fibers that innervate lymphoid organs and act on the spleen.”  The authors proposed that norepinephrine in lymphoid organs plays a significant role in the regulation of the immune system.  They stated:

“Stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function, and altered susceptibility to a variety of diseases.  Many stimuli, which primarily act on the central nervous system, can profoundly alter immune responses.  The two routes available to the central nervous system are neuroendocrine channels and autonomic nerve channels.” ^[6]

Thus, the immune system is affected by the nerve system through the connections with the endocrine and the autonomic nervous system.  And chiropractic care improves the function of the nerve system through improving the movement of the spinal bones that encase and protect the spinal cord.

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^[1] Korr IM: "Andrew Taylor Still memorial lecture: Research and Practice - a century later." J Am Osteopathy Assoc 1974 73:362.

² Murray DR, Irwin M, Reardon CA, et al. "Sympathetic and immune interactions during dynamic exercise. Mediation via a beta 2 - adrenergic-dependent mechanism." Circulation 1992 86(1): 203

³ Pero R. "Medical Researcher Excited By CBSRF Project Results." The Chiropractic  Journal, August 1989; 32.

⁴ Brennan P, Graham M, Triano J, Hondras M. "Enhanced phagocytic cell respiratory bursts induced by spinal manipulation: Potential Role of Substance P." J Manip Physiolog Ther 1991; (14)7:399-400.

⁵ Selano JL, Hightower BC, Pfleger B, Feeley-Collins K, Grostic JD.  "The Effects of Specific Upper Cervical Adjustments on the CD4 Counts of HIV Positive Patients.”  The Chiro Research Journal; 3(1); 1994.

⁶ Felton DL, Felton SY, Belonged DL, et al. "Noradrenergic sympathetic neural interactions with the immune system: structure and function." Immunol Rev. 1987 Dec;100:225-60.