I grew up in a household that did not focus on any vitamin or mineral supplementation.
It was the golden era of processed foods.
My day typically started with lucky charms or the like, followed by a PBJ along with 3 or 4 processed food “snacks”, soda or fast food etc.
My most healthy breakfast cereal was raisin bran, but I would add about 5 tablespoons of sugar and wait till it got nice and soggy.
It was yummy.
I think my experience was American typical.
These days, households are getting more health conscious.
In sharp contrast to my childhood, both of my children have their “vitamin” drink every AM without fail.
They have been vitamin and mineral supplementing from the time they stopped breast feeding.
They are both smart kids.
I always thought it was because they got my wife’s smarts.
While I think this is certainly true, they also may have been aided by our belief in vitamin supplementation.
As an adult I can notice a big difference in my own cognitive function when I am taking vitamin supplements.
In a new study posted recently on pubmed, researcher found a notable increase in nonverbal intelligence.
Here is a synopsis of the study.
Visit pubmed for the full details
The effect of vitamin-mineral supplementation on the intelligence of American schoolchildren: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.
Schoenthaler SJ1, Bier ID, Young K, Nichols D, Jansenns S.
Author details
Abstract
CONTEXT:
Numerous medical, nutrition, and education experts have long suspected that poor diet plan hinders the scholastic performance of Western schoolchildren; scholastic performance often enhances after improved diet plan. Nevertheless, others have actually suggested that such academic gains may be due to psychologic results rather than nutrition. To resolve this problem, 2 independent research study groups conducted randomized trials in which kids were provided placebos or low-dose vitamin-mineral tablets created to raise nutrient consumption to the equivalent of a healthy diet. Both teams reported considerably greater gains in nonverbal intelligence amongst the supplemented groups. The findings were important due to the fact that of the apparent insufficiency of diet they revealed and the magnitude of the potential for enhanced intelligence. However, none of the 10 subsequent replications, or the 2 original trials, lacked limitations leaving this concern in debate.
GOALS:
To determine if schoolchildren who take in low-dose vitamin-mineral tablets will have a considerably bigger boost in nonverbal intelligence than children who consume placebos in a research that conquers the main criticisms directed at the previous 12 regulated trials.
DESIGN:
A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial making use of stratified randomization within each teacher’s class based on preintervention nonverbal intelligence.
SETTINGS AND SUBJECTS:
2 “working class,” primarily Hispanic, primary schools in Phoenix, Arizona, participated in the study. Slightly more than half the teachers in each school dispersed the tablets daily to 245 schoolchildren aged 6 to 12 years.
INTERVENTION:
Daily vitamin-mineral supplements at 50 % of the united state day-to-day recommended allowance (RDA) for 3 months versus placebo.
OUTCOME MEASURES:
Post-test nonverbal IQ, as determined by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), while managing for pretest nonverbal IQ as a covariate. 4
MAIN RESULTS:
First, a substantial distinction of 2.5 IQ points (95 % CI: 1.85-3.15) was found in between 125 children given active tablets and 120 children offered placebo tablets (p = 0.038). Second, this conclusion follows the mean 3.2 IQ point web gain discovered in the 12 similar however less extensive research studies. Third, a considerably greater percentage of kids in the active group got 15 or more IQ points when compared with the placebo group (p < 0.01). Fourth, although 81 matched pairs produced no difference at all in nonverbal IQ gain, the modest 2.5 IQ point net gain for the whole sample can be explained by the staying 24 youngsters who took active tablets, and had a 16 point higher net gain in IQ
than the remaining 19 placebo controls.
CONCLUSIONS: This research confirms that vitamin-mineral supplements decently raised the nonverbal intelligence of some groups of Western schoolchildren by 2 to 3 points however not that of most Western schoolchildren, presumably because the bulk were already appropriately nurtured. This research also validates that vitamin-mineral supplements noticeably raises the non-verbal intelligence of a minority of Western schoolchildren, presumably because they were too improperly nurtured prior to supplementation for optimum brain function. Because nonverbal intelligence is carefully connected with academic performance, it follows that schools with kids who take in substandard diet plans ought to discover it challenging to produce academic performance equivalent to those schools with kids who consume diet plans that come closer to providing the nutrients recommended in the U.S. RDA. The moms and dads of schoolchildren whose scholastic efficiency is substandard would be well recommended to look for a nutritionally oriented doctor for assessment of their kids’s dietary status as a possible etiology.