Supplementation studies with soy protein isolate based food mix on 1-2 year old malnourished children - II: Improvements in the biochemical, clinical and cognitive profiles.

摘要

5000 children in the age group of 1-2 years were identified from ICDS centres of Coimbatore city, Tamil Nadu, India. Based on their height and weight, 1200 children could be identified with grade II malnutrition. Children identified from 200 ICDS areas were provided with 62 g of soy protein isolate (SPI) based food mix (group I) and the control (group II) consisting of 400 children from the ICDS areas were on home diet alone. Group III (n=400) from the same ICDS areas were supplemented with 49 g of SPI based food mix to provide the same amount of calories as in the ICDS mix and group IV (n=200) from the ICDS areas continued receiving the ICDS weaning food. Increments in haemoglobin levels between groups when compared statistically showed a significant difference at one percent level. SPI based food mix in general gave higher increments. Groups supplemented with SPI food mix showed better clinical picture which is indicative of the beneficial effects of SPI in improving resistance against common infections..