Iron Deficiency, Poverty, and Cognitive Troubles

S.A.M. · Nov 20, 2006

Iron deficiency and Cognitive Development

Babies who aren't getting enough iron in their diet do worse on mental-ability tests than babies whose iron needs are being met. In the latest study to confirm that threat to children, researchers find that mental deficits from iron deficiency worsen even into the teen years for children in families of low socioeconomic status.
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The researchers determined whether the children came from middle or low socioeconomic backgrounds by considering the educational and occupational status of parents.

Middle-socioeconomic children with good blood-iron status "looked great," says Lozoff. On a 125-point scale, their mental-test scores were the highest among all the groups throughout the study. But middle class children with chronic iron deficiency consistently lagged 8 to 9 points behind their iron-sufficient, middle class counterparts.

Low-socioeconomic children entering the study with good iron status had mental-test scores close to those of the middle class children with chronic iron deficiency. It was the children with "the double burden" of low status and chronic iron deficiency in infancy that had the lowest scores at the beginning of the study, says Lozoff. Furthermore, their scores worsened over time: They began 10 points below their iron-sufficient socioeconomic peers but fell to 25 points behind by age 19.

"You get a snowball effect," says Lozoff: The developmental delays due to iron deficiency can become compounded in a family that doesn't have the resources to help children compensate.
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A lack of iron can affect babies long before they become anemic. Many studies point to the critical biochemical role that iron plays in brain development and function, says Beard. Researchers have found in rodents that during development of a brain region called the hippocampus, iron deficiency limits the number of connections between nerve cells. "You can hypothesize those cells are getting less information," says Beard.

Insufficient iron in early life also reduces myelin, the fatty material that surrounds many nerve fibers. With less myelin, there is a reduction in the speed with which information travels along nerve fibers, says Beard. In the case of the muscle-triggering neurons, which are heavily sheathed with myelin, a lack of iron could result in less control of movements, he adds.

These and other changes that iron deficiency causes in the brain "are the things we think are contributing to the long-term cognitive and social-emotional effects we are finding," says Lozoff. Along with low scores on mental-ability tests, iron-deficient infants display hesitancy and limited interaction with their mothers. "Those things contribute to a child that may be less engaged, or less able to engage, in a social environment," she says.
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http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061111/food.asp

Just one of the ways in which poverty and malnutrition can affect intellectual development.

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Iron Deficiency, Poverty, and Cognitive Troubles

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Iron Deficiency, Poverty, and Cognitive Troubles

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