AUTHOR=Nakamura Yuko , Yamasaki Syudo , Okada Naohiro , Ando Shuntaro , Nishida Atsushi , Kasai Kiyoto , Koike Shinsuke 

TITLE=Macronutrient intake is associated with intelligence and neural development in adolescents

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1349738

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2024.1349738

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Introduction</title><p>Macronutrient intake can be one of the most influential factors in cognitive and neural development in adolescents. Adolescence is a specific period of cognitive and neural development, and nutritional effects during this period could be life-long. Therefore, understanding the effects of macronutrient intake on cognitive and neural development in adolescents is crucially important. We thus examined the association across macronutrient intake, intelligence, and neural development using population-based cohort data.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>We conducted two studies. In study 1, we included a total of 1,734 participants (boys, 907, age [mean ± standard deviation] 171.9 ± 3.44 months; range 163.0–186.0 months) from the Tokyo TEEN Cohort (TTC) to examine the association between macronutrient intake and intelligence quotient (IQ). In study 2, we included a total of 63 participants (boys, 38, age 174.4 ± 7.7 months; range 160.7–191.6 months) to investigate the effect of nutrition intake on neural development using graph theory analysis for resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) derived from a subset of the TTC.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>TTC data revealed that a higher IQ was associated in boys with increased protein intake (<italic>β</italic> = 0.068, <italic>p</italic> = 0.031), and in girls, with reduced carbohydrate intake (<italic>β</italic> = −0.076, <italic>p</italic> = 0.024). Graph theory analysis for rs-fMRI at approximately age 12 has shown that impaired local efficiency in the left inferior frontal gyrus was associated with higher carbohydrate and fat intake ([x, y, z] = [−51, 23, 8], <italic>p<sub>FDR-corrected</sub></italic> = 0.00018 and 0.02290, respectively), whereas increased betweenness centrality in the left middle temporal gyrus was associated with higher carbohydrate, fat, and protein intake ([x, y, z] = [−61, −43, −13], <italic>p<sub>FDR-corrected</sub></italic> = 0.0027, 0.0029, and 0.00075, respectively). Moreover, we identified a significant moderating effect of fat and protein intake on the relationship between change in <italic>betweenness centrality</italic> over a 2-year measurement gap in the left middle temporal gyrus and intelligence (<italic>β</italic> = 12.41, <italic>p</italic> = 0.0457; <italic>β</italic> = 12.12, <italic>p</italic> = 0.0401, respectively).</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>Our study showed the association between macronutrient intake and neural development related to intelligence in early adolescents. Appropriate nutritional intake would be a key factor for healthy cognitive and neural development.</p></sec>