Supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA may help improve
reading skills and behavior in kids who need help most — those
whose test scores place them in the bottom 20% of their
elementary school class — according to a new controlled trial.
Researchers at Oxford University’s Center for Evidence-Based
Intervention studied 362 7- to 9-year-old children who had
placed in the bottom third of their class in reading scores. For
16 weeks, the children were given either a placebo or 600 mg of
DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). The DHA was extracted from algae,
which are the original source of the omega-3 fatty acids found
in fish. Researchers then tracked students’ improvement on a
widely used British reading skills test and asked parents and
teachers to rate changes in the kids’ behavior, including their
attention and restlessness. Over the 16-week trial, the children
receiving placebos progressed in their reading skills as
expected. But those students who received DHA and had scored in
the bottom 20% of readers at t