IRON & INTELLIGENCE
According to a recent study, children who suffered from iron deficiency and who were diagnosed and treated as infants still showed ill effects into adulthood. Researchers from the University of Michigan assembled data on 191 Costa Rican children, some of whom had severe, chronic iron deficiency at ages 12 to 23 months, and who were treated at the time with iron supplements. The study revealed that these children were still likely to score lower than their peers on cognitive and motor tests when they reached their teens.
The researchers compared the iron-deficient group over time to non-deficient Costa Rican children in working class and middle class families. Researchers tested the children at the ages of five, 11 to 14, and 15 to 18, and found that those who were iron-deficient as infants continued to lag behind their peers in both physical and mental skills later in life. In fact, the iron-deficient children not only scored lower than their non-deficient peers, but the difference increased over time. The iron-deficient kids scored about six points lower on cognitive tests at ages one to two, and scored 11 points lower at ages 15 to 18. Scores were lowest for iron-deficient children who also came from families with low socioeconomic status, who had less stimulation at home, or who had mothers with low intelligence-test scores.
Iron performs a variety of important functions in human development including building myelin, the substance that covers the nerves and helps transmit nerve signals throughout the body. In the brain, iron is needed for dopamine, the chemical neurotransmitter responsible for transmitting nerve signals in the brain, and for nourishing the hippocampus, which plays a major role in learning and memory.
Reference: Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting; San Francisco, CA, 2004.
Tags: brain, children, deficient, hippocampus, intelligence, IRON, learning, memory, mental
