Elsevier

Nutrition Research

Volume 7, Issue 11, November 1987, Pages 1117-1126
Nutrition Research

Impact of hematinic supplementation on cognitive function in underprivileged school girls (8–15 Yrs of age)*

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5317(87)80037-4Get rights and content

Abstract

The effect of prophylactic hematinic dosing with 60 mg elemental iron (FeSO4) for 60 days at a stretch, twice in a school year on selected tests of Cognitive Function (CF), namely, Clerical Task, Visual Recall, Digit Span and Mazes in underprivileged school girls(8–15 yrs) with an initial mean Hb of 10.42±0.09 g/dl was investigated. Sixtyfive pairs of subjects initially matched for age, Hb, individual and total CF test scores were randomly assigned to either the treatment or placebo group. Hb levels and CF tests were assessed every four months ie. baseline at the initiation of the study(O month); at the end of the first school term (4th month); at the end of the second school term(8th month); and following a withdrawal of inputs (12th month). Results of the study indicated that (a) Hb levels in the hematinic treated group were 12.33±0.09 g/dl as against 10.68 g/dl in the placebo group (b) CF test scores rose in both the hematinic treated and placebo groups with successive testing. Hematinic treated group demontrated significantly higher scores versus the placebo group in Clerical Task (5.83 vs 4.93), Digit Span (4.75 vs 4.33), Mazes (7.54 vs 6.20) at 8th month evaluation, but not at 4th month evaluation. At 12th month, a significant drop in Mazes score and Total Score was noted. The beneficial effect of a twice-a-year hematinic dosing for subjects under study in tests of CF mainly, concentration, discrimination, perception and visual motor coordination was indicated.

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Cited by (17)

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    We originally found 11 studies contributing 21 effect sizes providing iron to children and testing if it raised their IQ. Two studies (Kashyap and Gopaldes, 1987; Seshadri and Gopaldes, 1989) were removed as they only included children with iron deficiency anemia. Two additional studies (Pollitt, Soemantri, Yunis, & Scrimshaw, 1985; Soemantri et al., 1985) included data on both anemic and non-anemic children, for the purposes of generalizability we only included non-anemic children where such a breakdown was available; fuller data from (Pollitt et al., 1985) was found in a different publication (Pollitt, 1997).

  • Effects of daily iron supplementation in primary-school-aged children: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

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    No studies reporting cognitive outcomes were at low overall risk of bias. Global cognitive performance was reported in 9 studies: 5 studies used IQ (tests: Raven Progressive Matrices, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC], Test of Non-verbal Intelligence 2nd Edition),28,43,44,55–58 3 studies used author-adapted scales of global cognitive performance (visual memory, digit span, mazes test, clerical task tests with maximum scores of 40),28–31,34 and 1 study used overall school performance.17,18 Data from 2 other studies could not be included because global cognitive scores were not presented.

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*

Presented at the 13th International Congress of Nutrition at Brighton, UK, held in August, 1985; supported by grants from the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India; and forms a part of the doctoral work of Purnima Kashyap.

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