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May 10, 2013

Downsides / Risks of High Choline Kids

filed under: Choline Risks Personal Experience
People always ask me what the downside of having high-choline kids (i.e. kids with better memories, higher IQ, less anxiety, etc.) - generally there have not been many I can think of.  One area where I think increasingly that there might be a risk of a downside is in the area highlighted in the research below.  Generally - high choline kids seem to have much higher thresholds for fear; it takes more to get them frightened of a situation.  I think this is probably a positive thing in most situations.  But research is starting to tease out some negatives too.  Here is, I think, one area where parents of high choline kids need to be aware of a risk.  New research is showing the lower fear responsiveness is associated with higher risk of aggression.  

While at first this might seem like a strange association --  what has fear got to do with aggression?  But - when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.  If someone is more afraid or concerned about how other people might react to their behavior, they are going to be more careful about being aggressive because they are afraid of the results.  If you lack that fear - you might be more aggressive because you aren't afraid of the repercussions (at least not initially).  

I see this sometimes in my own kids - the higher tendency towards aggression at times.  The best example I can think of is when they did a trial playdate as part of our younger child's entry into the the preschool we applied to (and which our older child attends).  Its a Mandarin immersion preschool - and perhaps 60% are children of Chinese-origin parents, while 30% are mixed race (Chinese / Caucasion typically) and then a minority are pure Caucasian like ourselves.  I note this only because it seems to me that there is a tendency towards higher levels of anxiety in Chinese children - if only because their parents seem to have such demanding standards in terms of behaviors and academic standards.  I also note this because during the "evaluation" play date (imagine a classroom with a dozen 2 year olds playing in a room with lots of toys, and half a dozen teachers and maybe a psychologist or two, taking notes on all the behaviors of the kids for an hour) - only our child yelled out loud (a couple of times during the hour) that the toy his friend was playing with was actually his and he wanted it back.  

All the other kids barely interacted with anyone else - they played by themselves and avoided the other children, for the most part.  My child was the one yelling at the other kid (a child of a friend of ours - and they have fought before over toys when we've been together - so that may also be a factor).

Anyway - perhaps something to be wary of - as high choline kids are definitely less fearful than the average kid.


Infants' Sweat Response Predicts Aggressive Behavior as Toddlers



Infants who sweat more in response to scary situations at age 1 show less physical and verbal aggression at age 3. 

Apr. 23, 2013 -- Infants who sweat less in response to scary situations at age 1 show more physical and verbal aggression at age 3, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Lower levels of sweat, as measured by skin conductance activity (SCA), have been linked with conduct disorder and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Researchers hypothesize that aggressive children may not experience as strong of an emotional response to fearful situations as their less aggressive peers do; because they have a weaker fear response, they are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.

Psychological scientist Stephanie van Goozen of Cardiff University and colleagues wanted to know whether the link between low SCA and aggressive behaviors could be observed even as early as infancy.

To investigate this, the researchers attached recording electrodes to infants' feet at age 1 and measured their skin conductance at rest, in response to loud noises, and after encountering a scary remote-controlled robot. They also collected data on their aggressive behaviors at age 3, as rated by the infants' mothers.

The results revealed that 1 year-old infants with lower SCA at rest and during the robot encounter were more physically and verbally aggressive at age 3.

Interestingly, SCA was the only factor in the study that predicted later aggression. The other measures taken at infancy -- mothers' reports of their infants' temperament, for instance -- did not predict aggression two years later.

These findings suggest that while a physiological measure (SCA) taken in infancy predicts aggression, mothers' observations do not.

"This runs counter to what many developmental psychologists would expect, namely that a mother is the best source of information about her child," van Goozen notes.

At the same time, this research has important implications for intervention strategies:

"These findings show that it is possible to identify at-risk children long before problematic behavior is readily observable," van Goozen concludes. "Identifying precursors of disorder in the context of typical development can inform the implementation of effective prevention programs and ultimately reduce the psychological and economic costs of antisocial behavior to society."

Co-authors on this research include Erika Baker, Katherine Shelton, Eugenia Baibazarova, and Dale Hay of Cardiff University.

This research was supported by studentships from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, and by a grant from the Medical Research Council.


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May 9, 2013

Another Person's experience with Pregnancy Choline

filed under: General Baby Health Personal Experience
I received the following email recently from a reader of this blog. I thought I'd share it since it cover's another family's experience with choline, and he's studied under the leaders in choline research.:

"I am a former student of Tina Williams and Warren Meck at Duke University and Steve Zeisel [University of North Carolina] was on my dissertation committee.  I ran across your website while looking for choline dosage recommendations during pregnancy.

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, I recommended lots of eggs and peanut butter. I also had my wife supplement with lecithin initially until we switched to choline bitartate. In the end she was getting 1.5 grams of choline a day, give or take. She kept this up (minus the peanut butter) through 1 year of breast feeding.

After 1 year, I did not supplement our son's diet with choline but a lot of our personal experience matches up with you describe: Full-term (he was induced against my better judgement); more alert; fast to become a good sleeper; low stress/anxiety response; fast to learn to walk (10 months); very good long-term memory (he can spontaneously remember things from 2 years ago at 4 years old).

We are now expecting our second child and the new research from Karen Stevens inspired me to see what was out there, and hence your blog.  Thanks for the good compilation of information. I think I will try for a much higher level of choline this time as well as more post-natal choline."
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September 5, 2012

Update on Second Child - Personal experience with Choline

filed under: Choline Benefits Personal Experience
We've been having great luck with getting our second child to eat the 1 gram+ per day of choline (in the form of Lecithin granules) added to pancake mix, on a near daily basis.  So I'd really recommend people try this approach if they are having problems in this area (which we did for a long time). 

I buy whole wheat pancake mix from Trader Joes, add crushed walnuts, and miscellaneous other things I find around the kitchen (extra egg yolks, oat bran, flax, chia seeds, etc.) and a large amount of choline - that works out to about a gram of choline per pancake.  I also add a lot of cinnamon powder, and vanilla extract - and you can hardly taste the choline when the pancakes are finished.  Add a little low-sugar jam, etc. - and the kids love them.

Our second child is doing well, and recently passed the 24 month/ 2-year milestone.  She is very conversationally fluent - I haven't counted the words - but perhaps in the range of 500 to 1,000 words in English, and perhaps half that in Chinese/Mandarin.  She counts to 10 without a problem, and knows the alphabet (to say it, but not to identify the letters, which we haven't worked on at all.

Friends have commented both on the advanced verbal skills (talks a lot, in sentences), and on the advanced motor skills (runs, climbs and moves quickly and accurately) of our second child.  Choline seems to be working well, and we are following an ongoing diet of 1 gram per day for children.
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July 31, 2012

Questions about Choline and Pregnancy from a Mother

filed under: Personal Experience
Just got the following questions from a woman considering high choline supplementation - here are her questions and my responses:

"I'm about to start choline diet since we'd like to try for a second child but I'd like to ask you a few questions.

I've read pretty much all the articles on your website and came up with the below questions:

1.Is obtaining lecithin from SOY better than non-soy sources? If I supplement with sunflower lecithin for example, would I get the same result based on your research? There are some sunflower lecithin products on the market and I'd really like to try it over soy-lecithin if it works the same."

 

My response:  All the research is focused on choline (typically choline chloride in animals and Phosphatydilcholine in humans) - so the issue of the source of the choline is not really discussed in the literature - so  sunflower vs. soy is not something I've done any research on.  Some people have concerns about the the phytoestrogens that could potentially be in some soy-derived products - so I understand the concern.  I don't know if there have been any studies on issues associated with Sunflower-derived sources - but I doubt it.  There may be more data on soy-derived products just because there is so much more soy in the global diet these days.  I suspect that any soy sources would be much cheaper - but ultimately it comes down to the choline levels I think.  If you can get the higher levels of choline - phosphatidylcholine - I think you're probably doing what the research also optimized.  I went with Soy Lecithin derived solutions because researchers I talked to suggested it, and it seemed to be what all the human studies that are in process now are using.


2.Does the choline intake of 3.5 gr for pregnant women and 1 gr for kids needs to be ON A DAILY basis or can we just take a few times a week?


My Response:   I suspect that the optimal dosing is on a daily basis - what you're trying to do is keep a high level of choline in the circulating blood stream so that the rapidly growing child's brain always has access to it as its is adding new cells.  That said, this isn't an issue that I've ever seen an studies on specifically. However,  if you want to maximize the positive impact, you probably want to take it daily, is my thinking.  Part of the issue is a practical one too - 3.5 grams of choline in the form of even triple strength lecithin (concentrate - what we used) - is A LOT of choline pills.  My wife was not too happy about the number of pills she was taking.  If you tried to take a few days worth, or a week's worth in one day - I think you'd be at the dinner table all day, with a very unpleasant meal.  I actually got a bunch of those huge pill boxes for old people for my wife (yes - she was less than enthused about this) and filled them up for breakfast, lunch and dinner vitamins.  Spreading them out during the day seemed like the best idea from an "implementation" standpoint. 


3. I was reading your answer to one of the readers question and u were saying that Choline bitrate hasn't been studied much and thus doesnt show the same result from Lecithin or it is not same as other type of choline. But on the other hand, u also mentioned that u did take 50% of choline bitrate and 50% of lecithin during ur 2. pregnancy.I just dont understing why would follow this protocol if u think choline bitrate does not work same as Lecithin. I would appreciate if you clarify that part for me.


My Response: I've only recently come to the decision that a higher Choline Lecithin mix is perhaps optimal (after my kids were born) - because I've talked with other parents who have had great results with just the Lecithin.  My rationale for going with the choline bitartrate was two fold - one, because I had seen the old Mid 1980s - research that suggested high levels of Lecithin could be problematic for brain development (and this is why I would't go a whole lot higher than the the 3 or 4 grams a day level that is currently recommended as maximum).  Secondly - choline bitartrate is much more "concentrated" choline than Lecithin derived choline is.  You can buy 500mg Choline Bitartrate vitamins on the Internet very easily - but the highest concentration Lecithin/Phosophatidylcholine is something like 280 mg - so you can get a lot more choline into your body with a lot fewer pills with Choline Bitartrate.  That was the rationale before - but as I said, I've spoken with other parents now who took the pure Lecithin approach without any problems, and with all the benefits.  So if I were to have another kid - I'd go with all Lecithin, or at least 75% or higher Lecithin.



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May 2, 2012

The Phenotype of the High Prenatal Choline Child

filed under: Choline Benefits General Baby Health Personal Experience
Biologists tend to describe the phenotype of an organism as the uniquely identifiable characteristics or behaviors that you can see or measure.

One of the topics that has come up among the parents that have done high prenatal choline supplementation for their kids is what exactly all the observable changes are to our children compared to non high-choline supplemented kids.  (Note:  by "High prenatal choline supplementation - I'm talking between 1.5 grams a day and 3. 5 grams/day (or higher) during pregnancy).

Here is a list that I believe is representative of the phenotypical changes we see in the high choline kids:

1.       Possibly a Higher Probability of Full Term Babies - our kids were both 41 weeks at birth (and so were virtually all our friends who also used choline) - and while there are many possible factors that might result in preterm birth - I suspect that good nutrition,  and low stress (or low stress /low cortisol) experienced by the fetus is going to result in a higher probability of being full term.  I've see research that if a mother-to-be takes folate / folic acid a year prior to conception - the rate of preterm birth is lower by 69% - and this suggests that Vitamin B like substances (like Choline) may have a roll in reducing risk of pre-term birth.  Since its now known that less than full term babies have a much higher rate of a large number of neurodevelopmental and other issues - I think that high choline kids might be benefiting from the choline in many different ways. 

2.    More alert and awake - this is especially noticeable during the first 3 months when many children have a tendency to be less alert.

3.    Fast to become full-night sleepers / Good Sleepers.  Our children started sleeping through the night (i.e. 6 to 8 hours sleep) at around 10 weeks or so.  I think that higher choline kids may (because the are less stressed) sleep better and sleep longer, earlier than regular kids who may be more sensitive and therefore wake up more frequently.

4.    Faster learning - of languages, etc. - At our first child's 2 year checkup the pediatrician said (unprompted by us) that she was amazed at the verbal and cognitive development, and as our child chatted in full sentences during the exam. She sees hundreds of kids, and has been a pediatrician in one of the best parts of our city for over 15 years, and said it was rare to see a child so advanced at that age.  Additionally, the 3 to 4 year old high choline kids I know speak two languages fluently, with vocabularies of several thousand words in each language. The children are also beginning to read at this age.

5.   Low Stress Response to Higher Stress Situations - In talking with other parents - I think that one common feature our children share is that some common higher-stress situations are not perceived as higher stress by our children.  The frequent vaccination shots when your child is very young are not so big a deal with high choline kids.  Our kids hardly cry at all, or perhaps at most for 5 or 10 seconds of light crying after a vaccination shot.  As you wait in the pediatrician's waiting room - you hear many kids screaming very loudly and persistently for a long time.  Our kids seem to view these experiences with much less concern.

6.   Faster Motor Skill Acquisition - most of our kids seem to start walking around age 9 months. (and by walking I mean able to walk across a 12 foot room without falling down).  Here is a video of our first child walking at about 9 and 1/2 months:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hp6dheEgvo

7.       Very good long term memory (kids recall stories from when they were much younger unprompted, and in great detail).

8.       Naturally Low anxiety (our children never have really shown any stranger anxiety), and low fear (our children -- both boys and girls -- love handling snakes, bugs and crabs and other new things) but fear can be learned very quickly if exposed to a fearful situation. For example, one of the children's grandparents showed our daughter the Disney movie "Dumbo" and our daughter became afraid of the dark so we had to start leaving the hallway light on for about a 10 months.  I've discovered that older Disney movies have many terrifying scenes for young children  (think Dumbo's mother being taken away from her children, Bambi's mother's death, etc.) so we avoid them now.

9.       Choline-Induced reduction in sleep requirements  (for children between the ages of 4 months to about 2 years) - in a dose-dependent manner.  At age 4 months  our first child began eating egg yolks (from boiled eggs) crushed and mixed with yogurt - and we found pretty consistent results. One egg yolk generally resulted in a skipped nap (when two naps was typical) - and two egg yolks resulted in all the naps being skipped that day - and the child would be alert and full of energy until late in the evening (meanwhile all the other kids would be melting down and headed off to bed).


One parent I talked seems to think that high choline kids are more developmentally "finished" when they are born (because choline is important for cell division and cell membranes), but I am not sure of that, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if good nutrition generally resulted in more "finished" or completely developed looking kids, and if you're supplementing with choline you're probably already more conscious about prenatal nutrition than the average parent - so that may be what is driving this.

admin (at) cholinebaby.com


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