I know you work hard to make the best lifestyle choices so you can improve your health

destiny and longevity, and there's lots of information out there on how to do just that.

So where do you start?

Well we start with the facts.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

My job is to bring you the latest peer-reviewed nutrition and health research and share it with

you here.

Today we look at the Long Chain Omega-3 fatty acid DHA that plays an important role in supporting

pregnant breastfeeding women in our first story.

We discover how DHA improves the development of infants.

One of the reasons breastfed infants may have better cognitive and visual development

is because human milk contains long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids like the omega-3 DHA.

The most available infant formulas did not, where infants given control formula without

DHA, didn't do as well as those given DHA fortified formula.

Neither did as well as the breastfed infants who serve as the gold standard.

But this was enough to convince formula manufacturers to start adding DHA to their infant formula starting

back in 2002.

The question then became how much to add.

Easy, right? Just add however much is naturally found in breast milk.

However, the DHA level in breast milk is extremely variable depending on what the mom is eating.

For example, there's all these healthy populations that don't eat any seafood and have much lower

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