UC Berkeley

Background

Iron deficiency anemia affects hundreds of millions of women and children worldwide and is associated with impaired infant outcomes. Small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) have been found to reduce the prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency in some trials.

Objectives

We evaluated the effectiveness of daily LNS supplementation on child anemia and micronutrient status in Madagascar within the context of an existing, scaled-up nutrition program.

Methods

We cluster-randomized 125 communities to (T0) a routine program with monthly growth monitoring and nutrition education; (T1) T0 + home visits for intensive nutrition counselling; (T2) T1 + LNS for children aged 6-18 mo; (T3) T2 + LNS for pregnant/lactating women; or (T4) T1 + parenting messages. Pregnant women and infants aged <12 mo were enrolled in 2014 and followed for 2 y. Child outcome measures included hemoglobin and anemia assessed using the HemoCue 301 system (n = 3561), and serum ferritin and soluble transferrin receptor as markers of iron status, retinol-binding protein as a marker of vitamin A status, and C-reactive protein and α-1 acid glycoprotein from a finger stick blood draw among a subsample (n = 387). We estimated mean difference using linear regression and prevalence ratios using modified Poisson regression accounting for the clustered design. All analyses were intention-to-treat.

Results

Children in the LNS groups (T2 and T3) had ∼40% lower prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency anemia and 25% lower prevalence of iron deficiency than children in the control group (T0) (P < 0.05 for all). There were no differences in any of the biomarkers when comparing children in the T4 group with those in T0; nor were there differences between T3 and T2.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest the provision of LNS in the context of a large-scale program offers significant benefits on anemia and iron status in young children.This trial was registered at www.isrctn.com as ISRCTN14393738.