VOA慢速：Restricting fish in pregnancy diet may do harm怀孕时不吃鱼对身体有害
英语世界 来源： 作者： 发布时间：2007-12-11
VOA慢速：Restricting fish in pregnancy diet may do harm 怀孕时不吃鱼对身体有害
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VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Pat Bodnar.
这是VOA慢速英语科技新闻报道，我是Pat Bodnar。
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Bob Doughty. This week on our show: A scientist says eating less fish during pregnancy may do more harm than good ...
我是Bob Doughty。这周我们关注的话题：一名科学家说，怀孕期少吃鱼害处比益处多。
VOICE ONE:
Studies say two new vaccines against rotavirus are safe and effective for young children ...
VOICE TWO:
And explaining the ancient Plague of Athens.
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VOICE ONE:
Two years ago, the United States government advised pregnant women to limit fish in their diet to three hundred forty grams a week. Women in some other countries get the same advice. The aim is to reduce the risk that mercury pollution in fish could harm the developing nervous system in children.
But now an American government researcher says women who follow this advice may be harming their children instead of protecting them. Joseph Hibbeln [pronounced HIH-beh-lin] is a medical doctor who works at the National Institutes of Health. He says the value to brain development from the omega-three fatty acids in fish oil outweighs the risk from mercury.
'My belly is not a chemical location' is the message of these pregnant women in Germany, protesting against industrial pollution. Yet a researcher suggests that the risk to fetuses from mercury in fish may be overstated.
On January seventeenth he spoke at a scientific meeting in London to report the findings of new research.
VOICE TWO:
Doctor Hibbeln and British scientists used information about thousands of British children. The information came from a health study known as the Children of the Nineties project, based at the University of Bristol. The research led by Doctor Hibbeln looked at the records of nine thousand pregnant women. The information included the amount of seafood their mothers ate while pregnant.
The researchers compared families that ate plenty of fish against those that ate less than three hundred forty grams per week. They also compared the development of the children at different ages.
They found important differences between the children of women who ate a lot of fish and the children of women who did not. The scientists based their observations on thirty-one different tests.
VOICE ONE:
These are some of the reported findings:
By around two years old, children whose mothers ate no fish had lower scores in tests for motor, communication and social skills. At the age of seven, they had more problems dealing with other children. And by eight they were more likely to do poorly on intelligence tests of language skills.
Mothers who had the most omega-three fatty acids in their diet had the children with the best fine-motor skills at age three-and-a-half.
Doctor Hibbeln has called some of the findings "frightening."
He says those responsible for the health advisory looked only at a study of the effects of eating whale meat with high mercury levels. He says they did not consider the risk of restricting the nutrients that pregnant women can get from fish.
Doctor Hibbeln would not comment further on the study until the findings appear in a scientific publication. First, other scientists must read and approve the report. But he tells us that the Medical Research Council of Britain, the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health paid for the research.
