Elsevier

The Journal of Nutrition

Volume 130, Issue 2, February 2000, Pages 350S-353S
The Journal of Nutrition

Developmental Sequel from Early Nutritional Deficiencies: Conclusive and Probability Judgements1

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ABSTRACT

Results from quasi-experimental longitudinal studies of children and from experimental research with animal models have led several investigators to state that early iron deficiency anemia leaves a permanent cognitive deficit. However, neither source of information provides a basis for such a claim. Some key confounders were not controlled by the quasi-experimental studies, and the external validity of the animal data is questionable. Further, three decades of research on the functional consequences of protein-energy malnutrition have shown that the social environment moderates the effects of an early nutritional insult; it can keep such effect unchanged, or increase or decrease its severity. The prediction of later life on the basis of a particular nutritional event carries a large error factor, which suggests that the search would be more fruitful if we tracked probability statements.

KEY WORDS:

protein-energy malnutrition
iron
anemia
cognition
development.

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1

Presented at the symposium entitled “Dietary Zinc and Iron—Recent Perspectives Regarding Growth and Cognitive Development” as part of the Experimental Biology 99 meeting held April 17–21 in Washington, DC. This symposium was sponsored by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences and was supported in part by an educational grant from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Symposium proceedings are published as a supplement to The Journal of Nutrition. Guest editors for this supplement publication were Harold H. Sandstead, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX and Phil A. Lofgren, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Chicago, IL.