Malnutrition and mental development

The perspective of meat and meat-alternative consumption in China

This study provides an overview of Chinese meat consumption based on literature review. China, having the largest mid-income population, has become the world's largest meat consumer. Its per capita meat consumption has been growing fast over the past decades to 49 kg, half of that of the US. Chinese consumers are aware of the environmental, health and animal welfare concerns, and can accept plant-based and lab cultured meats. Their adoption rate of these meat alternatives is low and their willingness-to-pay for them is also low from 5% below to 5% above conventional meat, compatible to the level in the US and EU countries. China, as an emerging economy, takes it as a serious challenge for food and nutrition security, where meat plays an indispensable role. Malnutrition still exists among children and the low-income population due to low meat intake. Government is playing an active role in boosting its domestic meat production to meet its market demand for more meat.

The Tallstick: A Tool for Community-Based Assessment of Nutritional Stunting

A new, simplified anthropometric field tool for detecting nutritional stunting, the “tallstick” has been developed in community-based pilot programmes in Nicaragua and Nigeria. The folding stick, marked to indicate height-for-age cut-off points for ages from birth to seven years below which the child is considered nutritionally stunted, is compared with arm circumference measurements as a simplified field tool. Sensitivity-specificity analyses contrasting the ability of height-for-age and arm-circumference cut-off points to detect malnutrition showed height for age to be as good as arm circumference for detecting low weight for age, weaker for low weight for height, and stronger for a composite score of any degree of malnutrition in 1,070 children 0–72 months old in urban Managua with a prevalence of wasting of 0%–4%, of stunting of 17%–38%, and of underweight of 4%–22%. The importance of detecting stunting, the likelihood of reducing stunting rates, and the feasibility of using the tallstick and its variants are discussed.

Facing malnutrition and poverty: evaluating the CONIN experience

The Undernutrition Prevention Center (UPC) of the Corporation for Childhood Nutrition (CONIN) assists children from 0-3 years of age who present with primary or secondary undernutrition. The aim of the retrospective study reported here was to complete a nutritional, cognitive, and social evaluation of UPC children in Mendoza, Argentina, from 1996 to 2005. During the study period, a total of 478 schoolchildren aged 5-17 years (186 in the CONIN group and 292 in the non-CONIN group) were evaluated. Although no differences in weight and height were found between the groups, the percentage of children below the cutoff level for the maturity test was significantly lower in the CONIN group (10.8% versus 17.6%; P = 0.043). CONIN provides important social support to families through work qualification programs and health education.

The effects of malnutrition on the motor, perceptual, and cognitive functions of Filipino children

The motor, perceptual, and cognitive abilities of 99 Filipino children, aged 4-6 years with a documented history of malnutrition from a nutritionally depressed area of Manila were determined using the Revised Manila Motor-Perceptual Screening Test. They were classified into four groups of: (1) normal; (2) acutely malnourished; (3) stunted but not malnourished; and (4) chronically malnourished using the Waterlow classification. Thirty-one normal children of comparable ages and background from a nationwide pool were similarly tested and served as the control group. Motor (p = 0.001) and perceptual skill (p less than 0.03 to less than 0.001) scores were significantly lower than in their normal counterparts, especially in the chronically malnourished children. Cognitive abilities were not evidently affected by malnutrition.

The neurology of poverty

An intellectual deficit is known to exist in populations where extreme poverty is rife and is thus seen extensively in the lower socio-economic strata of underdeveloped nations. Poverty is a complex entity whose sociological and economic indicators often bear little relevance to the biological agents which can affect the central nervous system. An attempt is made to express poverty in terms of identifiable defects, physiological in nature. Thus adverse socio-economic factors are converted into specific biological entities which, though necessary for adequate development of the brain, are restricted where there is poverty. A number of causative deficiencies, including nutritional, visual, auditory, tactile, vestibular, affective, and other stimuli are postulated. These interact and potentiate one another. Each is capable of an independent action on the brain and examples are given of some sensory deprivations as well as malnutrition and their possible mechanism of action. If the various deficiencies can independently harm the brain, then a number of separate specific functions should be affected; examples are offered. The nature of this intellectual deficit is probably a non-fulfillment of genetic potential of certain specific functions of the brain, which may exhibit limited variations between one community and another, depending on cultural differences. The deleterious effect of this intellectual impairment is seen most clearly in figures of school desertion, for example in Latin America. Analogous data for adults is scarce.

Nutrition and cognitive development among rural Guatemalan children

Women and children from four Guatemalan villages participated in a voluntary food supplementation program for seven years. In two of the villages, they received a vitamin and mineral fortified, high-protein calorie supplement. In the other two villages, the vitamin-mineral fortified supplement contained no protein and a relatively small number of calories. Cognitive tests were administered regularly to children ages three to seven, and anthropometric measures obtained. In addition, measures of families' social milieu were collected at several points in time. Using multiple regression analysis, we find that both nutritional and social environmental measures are related to various dimensions of cognitive competence. The results suggest that nutritional intake, independent of social factors, affects cognitive development. There is also some evidence that the children who receive the high-protein calorie supplement (and whose mothers received it during pregnancy and lactation) are more likely to score high in cognitive performance. Our results, while not diminishing social environmental explanations of differences in cognitive function, suggest benefits from nutrition intervention programs in rural areas of lesser-developed countries.

The effect of treatment on mental and psychomotor development of marasmic infants according to age of admission

The mental and psychomotor development of severely malnourished infants were examined during nutritional and psychological treatment. There was a significant difference between younger and older infants in their response to the treatment. The older infants had a remarkable reduction of their psychomotor development at admission and showed a considerable recovery throughout treatment. The younger infants became more affected during hospitalisation. The bodyweight deficit had mostly recovered by the end of the treatment.

Psychomotor development during treatment of severely marasmic infants

Previous studies of amlnourished infants have shown that their psychomotor development improves parallel to their nutritional rehabilitation. The present study showed that our patients recovered weight-for-age faster than height-for-age, becoming 42% obese at the end of the treatment. The psychomotor development was also significantly improved, but mainly in social, language and fine coordination areas. The gross motor behaviour did not show any improvement during 5 months of treatment. These results are interpreted in terms of the syndrome of dissociation of maturation.

The effects of protein energy malnutrition in early childhood on intellectual and motor abilities in later childhood and adolescence

Three groups of Ugandan children (20 in each group) and one comparison group of 20 children were examined between 11 and 17 years of age. The first three groups had been admitted to hospital for treatment of protein energy malnutrition between the ages of eight to 15, 16 to 21 and 22 to 27 months, respectively. The comparison group had not been clinically malnourished throughout the whole period up to 27 months of age. All the children came from one tribe and were individually matched for sex, age, education and home environment. It was found that the three malnourished groups fell significantly below the comparison group in anthropometric measurements and in tests of intellectual and motor abilities. No evidence was found for a relationship between the deficit and age at admission. Further analysis among the 60 malnourished children revealed that anthropometry and intellectual and motor abilities are the more affected the greater the degree of 'chronic undernutrition' at admission, but no correlation was found with the severity of the 'acute malnutrition'. The results show a general impairment of intellectual abilities, with reasoning and spatial abilities most affected, memory and rote learning intermediately and language ability least, if at all, affected. These findings are discussed in the context of a comprehensive and critical appraisal of the existing literature.