Due to the impact of the SARS epidemic, sales of brain-nourishing health food in stores and pharmacies this year are not as prosperous as the same period in previous years. However, recent sales volume has been rising, compared with previous months.

“Brain-nourishing health food is in the greatest demand in the month before the college and senior high school entrance exam, while usually parents will show less interests in that kind of food,” a salesperson of health food said.

Enhancing one’s memory, reducing tiredness, improving nutritional structure in the brain are some of the claims of effectiveness that brain-nourishing health food makes to parents who hope their children will have a bright future. Some English abbreviations such as DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) seem even more attractive to them.

However, can health food really have obvious effects in nourishing the brain and reducing tiredness, or even enhance people’s IQ in a short period?

Professor Chen Xiaoshu, former head of the Nutrition and Food Safety Institute of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has cleared up doubts and questions for the consumer.

Question One: Can DHA and EPA nourish teenagers’ brains?

Varied kinds of “deep-sea fish oil,” of which the main ingredient is unsaturated fatty acid, are currently the most popular health food for nourishing the brain. Relevant research found that unsaturated fatty acid has certain positive effects to the development of the nervous system and brain cells. However, people’s brains have developed completely by 2 to 3 years old, which means taking a brain-nourishing health food after the brain has reached full growth will have minor effects. DHA and EPA, which have often been seen on ads, belong to unsaturated fatty acid.

Prof. Chen Xiaoshu said DHA can be applied to little children as related scientific research has proved it could help the development of their brain, but the effect of EPA on brain’s development is uncertain so far. EAP takes part in the prostate metabolic process and therefore may not be suitable for children.

Prof. Chen pointed out that students could fully gain such nutrition as unsaturated fatty acid from an ordinary balanced diet. Taking extra-health food is entirely unnecessary.

Question Two: Can memory-enhancing health food enhance one’s memory noticeably?

Memory is a complicated physiological process. According to years of domestic and overseas research in this field, present medicine can only effectively improve one’s memory, but cannot noticeably enhance it.

Prof. Chen said results of related experiments on animals and human beings could only illustrate that the memory-enhancing health food could improve or enhance memory in a certain degree, and that’s all. “In respect of how much effect food has, I think that health food doesn’t have tremendous power and we cannot overstate its effectiveness.”

Question Three: Can brain excitation health food keep one’s mind lastingly fresh?

Some such health food contains a variety of ingredient to enhance nervous centralis excitation. Students will feel very fresh in their mind temporarily after taking them. “But it’s just an expedient,” said Prof. Chen, “It’s widely divergent to the concept of brain-nourishment.” Effectiveness of such kind of health food is the same as coffee, which can only make one’s brain excited temporarily, but one will feel more tired when the excitation passes.

Prof. Chen said if one has an emergent task to deal with, it’s certainly not bad to take health food. “But to a child who is growing up, I don’t advocate it,” Chen said.

Question Four: Can tiredness-reducing health food relax our mind?

Some health food is said to relieve tiredness and strains on the brain. However, Prof. Chen insists that is not correct.

He said the present tiredness-reducing health food, ratified by the Ministry of Health (MOH), actually cannot reduce the tiredness of the brain. Experiments related to health food were basically focused on physical labor such as swimming and pole-climbing. So, with the effectiveness of anti-oxidation, health food is not able to deal with the problems of mental labor.

The expert suggests parents get rid of the long-standing mistaken ideas concerning health food. What parents should do before big exams is to guarantee the students have a proper diet and physical exercise with moderate intensity as well as lead them to follow scientific studying methods, coupled with timely psychological adjustments from both teachers and parents. There is no need to depend on brain-nourishing health food to relax students’ strained brains.

Sales of brain-nourishing health food in China are increasing by 15 to 30 percent annually, which reflects the eagerness of parents for their children’s bright future. Actually, parents’ help in relieving students’ psychological strains, letting them meet coming exams with a relaxed heart seems to be the most-needed “health food” for the child.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, June 5, 2003)