Seafood Intake During Childhood and Adolescence and Neurocognitive Development and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A NESR Systematic Review

Abstract

ObjectivesTo inform the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025, USDA and HHS identified important public health questions to be examined by the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The Committee conducted two systematic reviews with support from USDA’s Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review (NESR) team to answer the following questions: What is the relationship between seafood consumption during childhood and adolescence and 1) neurocognitive development and 2) risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)? MethodsThe Committee developed protocols that described how they would use NESR’s systematic review methodology to examine the evidence related to seafood intake during childhood and adolescence and neurocognitive development and risk of CVD. NESR librarians conducted a literature search and NESR analysts dual-screened the results using pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria to identify articles published between January 2000 and October 2019. NESR analysts extracted data and assessed risk of bias of included studies. The Committee synthesized the evidence, developed conclusion statements, and graded the strength of the evidence underlying the conclusion statements. ResultsThirteen (6 from 3 randomized controlled trials [RCT] and 7 from 6 prospective cohort studies [PCS]) and four (2 RCT and 2 PCS) articles met inclusion criteria for the systematic reviews on the relationship between seafood consumption during childhood and adolescence and 1) neurocognitive development and 2) risk of CVD, respectively. For all neurocognitive outcomes, no conclusions could be drawn due to an inadequate number of studies, inconsistency in results, and heterogeneity of outcome assessments. For all CVD outcomes, no conclusions could be drawn due to the few number of included studies and methodological limitations present in some studies. ConclusionsInsufficient evidence is available to determine the relationship between seafood consumption during childhood and adolescence and neurocognitive development and risk of developing CVD. More well-designed studies are needed to determine whether consuming seafood during childhood and adolescence impacts health outcomes. Funding SourcesUSDA, Food and Nutrition Service, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Alexandria, VA.