I saw this announcement in Food Navigator: Study: Nutrient dense formula could improve cognition and behaviour in infants.
My immediate question: Who paid for this?
I went right to it.
The study: Schneider N, Hartweg M, O’Regan J, Beauchemin J, Redman L, Hsia DS, Steiner P, Carmichael O, D’Sa V, Deoni S.
Impact of a Nutrient Formulation on Longitudinal Myelination, Cognition, and Behavior from Birth to 2 Years: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Nutrients. 2023; 15(20):4439. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15204439Conclusions: The results suggest that brain development may be modifiable with brain- and age-relevant nutritional approaches in healthy infants and young children, which may be foundational for later learning outcomes.
Funding: This study received funding from the Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Conflicts of Interest: This study received funding from the Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. The funder had the following involvement with the study: study design, study monitoring and oversight, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript.
Comment: Some of the authors of this study are employed by Nestlé (no relation). Their disclosure statement is unusually candid: the funder was totally involved in every aspect of the research. It’s refreshing to see that dislosed. But the underlying issue still holds: industry-funded reseach all too often produces results favorable to the commercial interests of the funder.
The concern here is that promoting infant formula as better than breast milk is a marketing strategy, as described in reports from the World Health Organization. And see my previous post on this.
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