My kids would eat their own weight in bacon if I let them. And maybe now I am going to have to.

According to a study released on March 8 by the Duke University Medical Center, cholesterol may help prevent some of the neurological and physical defects caused by pre-natal exposure to alcohol.

Yes, you read that right, cholesterol. It made me stop when I read it too.

It turns out that cholesterol is very important to fetal development, so important in fact that pregnant women whose cholesterol levels aren't high enough could have children with developmental problems--even if they don't drink alcohol.

But adding alcohol to the mix complicates things further. Working with zebrafish embryos, the Duke researchers found that alcohol, even in small amounts, blocks cholesterol's ability to help guide organs to develop properly in the embryo.

Interesting enough, but they also found this: If they gave the zebrafish embryos supplemental cholesterol, the embryos were restored to normal development. The press release on the study doesn't say which kind of cholesterol the researchers were dealing with, low-density lipoprotein (sometimes known as "bad cholesterol") or high-density lipoprotein (a.k.a. "good cholesterol"). (Of course, it also doesn't say how they got they got the fish to drink.). But it makes me wonder what role diet could play in aiding the development with children who have been diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or related disorders.

Yin-Xiong Li, MD., Ph.D., the Duke scientist who led the study, said that how severe FAS is depends on the amount of alcohol consumed, how long the birth mother drinks and at what period in her pregnancy. He noted that alcohol consumed when a fetus is one month old could alter brain development, while later exposure could affect facial structures, the heart or eyesight.

For medical professionals and scientists, the Duke study is published in the March 2007 issue of the journal Laboratory Investigation. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.