Long-term effects of iron and zinc supplementation during infancy on cognitive function at 9 y of age in northeast Thai children: a follow-up study.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The researchers investigated the effect of iron or zinc supplementation or both during infancy on cognitive performance 8 y later.

General linear mixed models were used to assess long-term effects.

Why It Was Studied

Iron and zinc are important micronutrients for child growth and development.

One would expect that iron and zinc supplementation in infancy would affect long-term cognitive development and school achievement, but this has not been evaluated.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 560 children were involved.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants and children, both men and women.

Cognitive performance was assessed by using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (Thai version), the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM), and school performance tests.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

The children were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

What Was Measured

One would expect that iron and zinc supplementation in infancy would affect long-term cognitive development and school achievement, but this has not been evaluated.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Child Development, Cognition Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Dietary Supplements, Intelligence, Intelligence Tests and Iron, Dietary.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 560 children.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2011 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.