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MONDAY, April 22 (HealthScoutNews) -- Two fatty acids that are key to infants' visual development and are important in processing information are now available in this country in two commercial baby formulas.
The fatty acids, called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA), begin accumulating in the fetal brain around the sixth month of pregnancy and are in a mother's breast milk, says Susan Carlson of the University of Kansas Medical Center, one of the researchers involved in studies of the compounds.
"They are an incredibly important part of the central nervous system, and without them the visual system is compromised," she says.
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There's also increasing evidence that higher amounts of DHA and ARA improve how babies process information, she says.
While the additives have been sold in baby formula for the past five years in 60 countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only recently approved them for sale here.
The formulas, called Enfamil LIPIL and Similac Advance, are manufactured by Mead Johnson Nutritionals and Ross Products, respectively, and are now available nationally, both companies say.
"We've sold Enfamil LIPIL in Hong Kong for two years, and now 75 percent of the moms have switched to it from regular Enfamil with iron," says Mead Johnson spokesman Pete Paradossi. "It has the appropriate levels and ratios of each compound to enhance visual and mental development."
Carlson, a nutrition professor at the University of Kansas, has long believed that DHA and ARA were needed for optimal development in premature infants who did not have the chance for the fatty acids to accumulate in their brains before birth.
In studies of pre-term and term infants over the past decade, Carlson found that the addition of DHA and ARA to the babies' diets was of great value.
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