The finding boosts the case for primary care clinicians to promote breastfeeding.
Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, at King’s College London, studied existing data on 3,000 children from studies in Britain and New Zealand.
They found that children with a particular version of the FADS2 gene, found in 90 per cent of those in the study, had IQs on average 7 points higher if they were breastfed.
Children with a different version of the gene did not benefit intellectually from breastfeeding.
Previous studies have suggested breastfed children had higher IQ’s because their mothers were likely to be from more affluent, well-educated backgrounds.
nick.bostock@haymarket.com
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