A NORTH-EAST scientist's belief in using food supplements to boost children's learning powers gets a powerful endorsement on television tonight.

The new series of Child of Our Time, on BBC1, will include footage of a three-year- old whose hyperactivity appears to have been cured by supplements containing fish oil and evening primrose oil.

Dr Madelaine Portwood, the Durham educational psychologist who has championed supplements to treat hyperactivity, was invited to try to treat the boy, known only as James.

After three months of taking daily supplements, the programme will show how the boy's behaviour has improved dramatically.

"Since taking the supplement he has been transformed from being a very angry and disaffected child with major behavioural problems to become a model pupil," said Dr Portwood.

The scientist, who has already shown how capsules containing fish oil and evening primrose oil can help under-achieving junior school children in Durham, believes the increasing evidence that diet plays a part in behaviour cannot be ignored.

"We seriously need to consider the diet of children at a time when we are seeing increasing numbers of children presenting with behavioural and emotional problems," said Dr Portwood, who believes that modern diets containing processed foods do not provide our brains with the nourishment they require.

After organising last year's school trial, which involved 123 pupils at 12 County Durham schools taking daily capsules, Dr Portwood revealed that she has begun a small scale study involving pre-school children.

Andrew Westerman, head- teacher at the Timothy Hackworth junior school in Shildon, County Durham, said 11 nursery school children had been enrolled on the study.

"We are seeing very excitable children earlier and earlier," the headteacher said.

Although the earlier study was now over, the number of parents giving their children daily supplements of Eye.q capsules had increased, he said.

Tonight's programme is part of a new documentary series which follows a group of 25 children and their parents for the first 20 years of the children's lives.

The series focuses on the children as they approach their fourth birthdays and enter the world of pre-school.

* Child Of Our Time, presented by Professor Robert Winston, is at 9pm on BBC 1.