VISUAL FUNCTION AND FATTY ACID COMPOSITION IN BREAST-FED AND FORMULA-FED INFANTS

Abstract

The retina and brain are rich in long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAsL mainly arachidonic acid (AA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) which are known to be important for optimal visual development in human . Breast milk contains preformed AA and DHA but formula milks only contain the precursors linoleic acid (LA) and alpha-linolenic acid (a -LNAL and hence formula-fed infants must synthesize their own DHA and AA. There is evidence that formula-fed infants are unable to metabolize their full requirement of DHA and AA.

The aim of this work was to study the fatty acid composition o.. f both plasma and feeding milk for breast-fed and formula-fed infants and evaluate their visual function through determination of visual evoked response (VER) latency in these infants.

This study has been conducted on thirty healthy well nourished infants 1-4 months of age; fifteen of them were purely breast-fed and the other fifteen were purely formula