Eating oily fish may help children sleep better

London: Eating oily fish or omega-3 supplements could improve children's quality of sleep, a new Oxford study has found.

The study suggests that higher levels of omega-3 DHA, the group of long-chain fatty acids found in algae and seafood, is associated with better sleep.

Researchers from the University of Oxford explored whether 16 weeks of daily 600mg supplements of algal sources would improve the sleep of 362 children. At the outset of the study, the parents filled in a child sleep questionnaire, which revealed that four in 10 of the children in the study suffered from regular sleep disturbances.

Of the children rated as having poor sleep, the researchers fitted wrist sensors to 43 of them to monitor their movements in bed over five nights.

The study showed that the children on a course of daily supplements of omega-3 had nearly one hour (58 minutes) more sleep and seven fewer waking episodes per night compared with the children taking the corn or soybean placebo.

The study looked at sleep in 362 healthy seven to nine-year-old UK school children in relation to the levels of omega-3 and omega-6 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) found in fingerstick blood samples.

Previous research has suggested links between poor sleep and low blood omega-3 LC-PUFA in infants and in children and adults with behaviour or learning difficulties.

However, this is the first study to investigate possible links between sleep and fatty acid status in healthy children. At the start of the study, parents and carers were asked to rate their child's sleep habits over a typical week.

Their responses indicated that 40 per cent of the children had clinical-level sleep problems such as resistance to bedtime, anxiety about sleep and constant waking in the course of the night.

The study finds that higher blood levels of the long-chain omega-3 DHA (the main omega-3 fatty acid found in the brain) are significantly associated with better sleep, including less bedtime resistance, parasomnias and total sleep disturbance.

It adds that higher ratios of DHA in relation to the long-chain omega-6 fatty acid AA (arachidonic acid) are also associated with fewer sleep problems.

"To find clinical level sleep problems in four in 10 of this general population sample is a cause for concern. Various substances made within the body from omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids have long been known to play key roles in the regulation of sleep," lead author Professor Paul Montgomery of Oxford University said.