4.1. Dietary Intake of Total PUFAs and Neurodevelopmental Outcome
VLBW, cognitive and motor scores
SECONDARY
This is a secondary outcome analysis of a randomized intervention trial investigating the dietary intake of total PUFAs, DHA and AA during the first year of life and its associations with neurodevelopmental outcome. To the best of our knowledge, there are no published data on dietary intakes of PUFAs during the complementary feeding period and its association with neurodevelopmental outcome in VLBW infants. In this study, we were able to demonstrate that a higher total PUFA intake during the first year of life was significantly associated with better developmental scores, particularly for cognitive and motor scores at 12 months CA. Infants who had higher intakes of total PUFAs also exhibited higher motor and cognition scores at 24 months CA (effect size: 2.74 and 3.37), although the association was not statistically significant. We speculate that the lack of statistical significance may be due to the discontinuation of the standardized feeding concept after the first year of life. Additionally, the subgroup analysis examining the association between PUFA intake and neurodevelopmental outcome across sexes demonstrated that higher intakes of total PUFAs, AA and DHA had a significantly greater positive impact on neurodevelopmental outcomes in male subjects compared to their female counterparts. Therefore, it appears that the intake of PUFAs has sex-specific effects on neurodevelopmental outcomes.Although there are no recommendations on the minimal absolute daily intake, PUFA intake is recommended to be less than 15% of energy for infants up to 24 months of life [