Ok... Just sharing my knowledge on food supplement. My background? I used to work in a pharmaceutical company dealing with food supplement. Try to consider the points and try discussing with a Qualified Healhcare Professionals ya?

DHA = highly recommended for child's brain developement especially from baby till 5 years old. After that, not much use as the brains is well developed.

For pregnant mothers, depending on the source of the dha, if from milk formula, it should be safe if u follow the drinking dosage. But if from food supplement such as fish oil, then u might wanna consult your doctor as in fish oil, apart from having dha, it also consists EPA that might cause thinning of the blood which are very dangerous during labour as it might cause lose of blood.

while you're taking DHA supplements, don't forget about arachidonic acid. get those supplements which has both, like the milk formula. DHA and AA work hand in hand. many research papers did not include AA as part of the factor,

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/102011.php

not all fish oil contains the right ratio of O3 and O6, the process molecular distillation (used by many supplement companies) ensures that there is only DHA and EPA is left after the process. usually in health supplements, you can see in their labels that they don't contain any O6. (or if you compare the capsule size of let's say 500mg of fish oil, there's like 300mg EPA 200mg DHA, no room for O6 you see?)

Ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Gabe Mirkin, M.D.


Fat is classified into saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. Saturated fats are believed to increase your risk for heart attacks when you take in more calories than you burn. We used to think that all polyunsaturated fats help to prevent heart attacks when they replace saturated fats, but now we have different information.

Polyunsaturated fats are classified by their structures into omega-3s and omega-6s, and you need both types; these are called the essential fatty acids because you cannot make them in your body and must get them from your food.

For most of the time humans have been on earth we have eaten foods containing omega-6's and omega-3's in a ratio of about 2:1. However, over the last 50 years in North America, the ratio has changed to from 2:1 to 10-20:1. Our diet now includes huge amounts of oils that are extracted from plants and used for cooking or in prepared foods. These oils (such as corn oil, safflower oil, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, soybean oil) are primarily omega-6s. We have decreased our intake of omega-3's, found primarily in whole grains, beans and other seeds, and seafood.

Eating too much omega-6 and too little omega-3 causes clots and constricts arteries to increase risk for heart attacks, increases swelling to worsen arthritis, and aggravates a skin disease called psoriasis. It may block a person's ability to respond to insulin, causing high insulin and blood sugar levels and obesity. It increases hormone levels of insulin like growth factor-1 that causes certain cancers.

To get your ratio on omega-6s to omega-3s back to a more healthful 2:1, eat seafood, whole grains, beans and other seeds, and reduce your intake of foods made with or cooked in vegetable oils.

More on Omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3s from plants

Who's afraid of n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids? Methodological considerations for assessing whether they are harmful. Nutrition Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, 2001, Vol 11, Iss 3, pp 181-188. EM Berry. Hebrew Univ Jerusalem, Hadassah Med Sch, Fac Med, Dept Human Nutr & Metab, IL-91010 Jerusalem, ISRAEL

Checked 2/19/10

We visited a doctor who once said, if DHA is so good, those foreign worker / laborer should just buy baby milk and drink - no need to study / work so hard also can be doctor! I think he's plain arrogant. Despite he might make sense but all the advertisement in TV, products, mags has showed that many products contain DHA these days, not just breast milk. If it's a plus point (whether proven or not), dont matter to me. So long it is not harmful.