Weekly Fish Consumption Linked to Better Sleep, Higher IQ, Penn Study Finds

Thursday, December 21, 2017 - Children who eat fish at least once a week sleep better and have IQ scores that are 4 points higher, on average, than those who consume fish less frequently or not at all, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania published today in Scientific Reports , a Nature journal. Previous studies showed a relationship between omega-3s, the fatty acids in many types of fish, and improved intelligence, as well as omega-3s and better sleep. But they've never all been connected before. This work, conducted by the  School of Nursing 's  Jianghong Liu ,  Jennifer Pinto-Martin  and  Alexandra Hanlon  and  Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor   Adrian Raine , reveals sleep as a possible mediating pathway, the potential missing link between fish and intelligence. "This area of research is not well-developed. It's emerging," said Liu, lead author on the paper and an associate professor of nursing and public health. "Here we look at omega-3s coming from our food instead of from supplements." For the work, a cohort of 541 9- to 11-year-olds in China, 54 percent boys and 46 percent girls, completed a questionnaire about how often they consumed fish in the past month, with options ranging from "never" to "at least once per week." They also took the Chinese version of an IQ test called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, which examines verbal and non-verbal skills such as vocabulary and coding.