Nutritional intervention for iron and vitamin A deficient school children.

摘要

A study was conducted to determine the effect of iron and vitamin A supplementation on the haemoglobin and serum retinol content of children (Parbhani, India). 70 school children (aged 10-12 years) were equally divided into 2 groups; experimental group and control group. During the study, one child was dropped out from the experimental group, therefore the number of experimental group children was 34. Roasted rice flakes chiwda and sesamum chikki were selected as iron rich supplementary foods for the intervention programme. These foods provided 9.45 to 9.55 mg of iron per serving. On the other hand, papaya and carrot were selected as vitamin A supplementary foods for the intervention programme which provided 945 to 999 micro g of beta -carotene per serving. The body weight of the experimental group children significantly increased from 20.50 to 22.29 and body mass index from 16.74 to 18.15 at the end of the study. Haemoglobin content of the experimental group children ranged from 5.22 to 9.78 g/dl with a mean value of 6.70+or-1.10 g/dl before supplementation, which was found to be significantly increased after the supplementation (10.80+or-1.80 g/dl). Whereas the mean blood haemoglobin level of the control group children remained unaltered (9.71+or-1.90 g/dl to 9.73+or-1.93 g/dl). Before supplementation the serum retinol levels of experimental and control group children were 22.35+or-1.96 micro g/dl and 24.36+or-2.02 micro g/dl, respectively. After 90 days supplementation the mean serum retinol level of experimental group children was 32.94+or-3.61 micro g/dl and that of control group children was 25.44+or-2.02 micro g/dl, which was statistically significant (P<0.01)..