A developmental view of the effects of an energy and micronutrient supplement in undernourished children in Indonesia.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Micronutrients in this randomized controlled trial publication.

This paper presents the results of a structural equation model testing whether the longitudinal data of the Pangalengan subjects fit the theoretical model regarding the intellectual delay of undernourished children.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, both men and women.

A 12-month-old (n = 53) and an 18-month-old (n = 83) cohort were recruited from day-care-centers.

Inclusion criteria were: no chronic disease; length-for-age = < 1 standard deviation (s.d.) and weight-for-length between -1 and -2 s.d. of the median of the reference of the World Health Organization.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Because people in this Micronutrients study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

The sites were six tea plantations in Indonesia.

Twenty-four-hour dietary intakes were assessed using the weighted individual inventory technique.

Body weight and length were obtained using standard procedures; motor development was assessed with the Bayley Scale and with a custom made scale for motor development leading to bipedal locomotion.

Four-hour observations were made of the child's interactions with the environment.

Carrying a child in the arms and exploratory behavior were used as indicators of caregiving and exploration.

What Was Measured

All measurements were obtained every 2 months.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anthropometry, Brain, Child Development, Cognition, Cohort Studies, Diet Records and Dietary Supplements.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Micronutrients.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2000 (European journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.