Feeding the 5,000

CONSIDERING he has just agreed to give away £1m worth of his product, Adam Kelliher looks like a very happy man. The boss of food supplement manufacturer Equazen has agreed to bankroll an ambitious project to boost the exam results of County Durham teenagers.

Mr Kelliher, a former television journalist who covered the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in the 1980s, is so convinced that his eye-q fish oil and evening primrose oil capsules can help children concentrate and learn that he has agreed to provide a cool million pounds worth of capsules to support the Durham scheme.

At yesterday's Press launch of the scheme, the Equazen managing director was flanked by Durham County Council's chief schools inspector, Dave Ford, Young People's Cabinet member, Councillor Claire Vasey, and senior educational psychologist, Dr Madelaine Portwood.

The extraordinary project - the first of its kind in the world - is to offer eye-q food supplements to every 15-year-old in Durham state schools starting next month.

Successive, small-scale trials involving giving eye-q capsules to junior and secondary school pupils in County Durham have convinced education chiefs that food supplementation could help boost GCSE exam results next summer.

But without Mr Kelliher's largesse, it is doubtful whether this grand exercise in mass medication could have got off the ground.

The Equazen boss says he is relaxed about the mind-boggling commitment made by his firm - because he knows that if the project is successful it could trigger a stampede of other under-achieving local education authorities interested in replicating the Durham project.

But more than anything else, Mr Kelliher is cool about his commitment to Durham LEA because he is convinced that his supplements really do work.

"It is straightforward. We know the stuff works," he says.

The journalist became convinced of the value of food supplementation after marrying the daughter of David Horrobin, a pioneering researcher in the field of food supplements. His late father-in-law was the first to realise the dietary importance of so-called long chain fatty acids, including omega 3 and omega 6, which form an essential part of our brains.

"David discovered the efficacy of the omega 3 fatty acid EPA, published about 1,200 scientific papers and took out around 200 patents in this field," recalls Mr Kelliher.

Inspired by his work, Mr Kelliher and his wife Cathra founded Equazen in 1999 with the aim of producing a range of food supplements which could help stimulate brain power. The company has gone from strength to strength and last year Equazen had a turnover of £8.7m.

A chance meeting with Dr Madelaine Portwood at a conference a few years ago led to a fruitful professional relationship which has allowed Durham schools to become a testbed for food supplementation and a shop window for Equazen.With a succession of impressive trial results, first at 12 Durham junior schools and then at Greenfield Comprehensive in Newton Aycliffe, the ability of eye-q capsules to improve behaviour and boost concentration is now proven.

This meant that the chance to be associated with the biggest food supplement experiment in the world was too great to resist. That's why Mr Kelliher was happy to be at Belmont Comprehensive School in Durham City yesterday.

"As a result of the trials which have already taken place in Durham there is now a much greater awareness of the importance of omega 3 and omega 6 supplements," he says.

"This is not just a giveaway. It is a practical programme. When we come back in August next year we should be able to report some interesting results."

From the local education authority's point of view, the donation of ten million capsules by eye-q presents the council with a unique opportunity to do something about County Durham's relatively poor exam results.

Speaking at yesterday's Press conference to announce the scheme, Dave Ford said the initiative was "a natural extension" of a four-year project to boost GCSE results in Durham schools.

"We have put £2m of resources into looking at every strategy we can to support exam results in Durham. We have the highest levels of deprivation in the country and we want to do all we can to give our young people the best life chances."

Members of the Press arriving at yesterday's launch were given a brochure of the eye-q story. The most remarkable entry compares the handwriting of ten-year-old "Thomas" from Shildon before and after he was given eye-q supplements for a few months. From an illegible scrawl, the boy's handwriting has been transformed into a relatively neat, perfectly legible script.

Another pupil, Elliot Best, features in a video presentation made by Dr Portwood setting out the science behind omega 3 and omega 6 food supplementation. Elliot was described as a little boy who thought reading was "boring" and who spent most of his spare time watching cartoons and eating crisps. But after a course of daily eye-q capsules, the Timothy Hackworth Junior School pupil began a remarkable transformation.

His head teacher, Andrew Westerman, says that Elliot's reading ability has "rocketed" and he was now "devouring" books.

Dr Portwood makes the most of the hard evidence she now has that eye-q food supplementation can help improve bonding between mothers and young children, reduce hyper-activity and restlessness and increase the ability to concentrate, learn and retain information.

She explains that eye-q supplements help a part of the brain known as the cortex function more efficiently. At the same time they calm down a part of the brain known as the limbic system, which is associated with restlessness and lack of concentration.

"The cortex has lots of connections. If we can improve the connectivity in a child's brain they are less excitable and can learn more easily," says Dr Portwood.

Fatty acids - including omega 3 and omega 6 - are components of every living cell in the body but are particularly important for vision, hearing and brain function.

Fish oil in eye-q capsules provides the body with the omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. EPA is needed to transmit messages along nerves and for the laying down of memory. DHA is a building block of all nerve and eye cell membranes.

The evening primrose oil in eye-q capsules provides the essential fatty acid GLA which is important in maintaining eye and brain function.

Dr Portwood believes that, historically, the human diet was naturally rich in such fatty acids but, because of modern processed food, many of us miss out on essential elements in our diet. She is also convinced that the end of the Durham experiment will show there has been a clear improvement in exam results.

Dave Ford is upbeat about the prospects. "We are convinced it will be beneficial," he says.

One thing is certain, if there is significant improvement in exam results above what is predicted, Mr Kelliher is likely to be very busy.