Routine Iron Supplements Didn't Improve Cognitive…

Routine Iron Supplements Didn't Improve Cognitive Development in a Major Malaria Endemic Trial The World Health Organization recommends universal preventive iron supplementation for young children in areas where anaemia is common, based on the assumption that correcting anaemia will improve brain development. But this recommendation has never been rigorously confirmed in a randomised trial, and there have been genuine concerns that iron supplements might increase infection risk in malaria endemic settings. A large new trial published in JAMA finally tests this directly. Researchers enrolled 2,168 six month old infants across four centres in rural, malaria endemic southern Malawi, where 71% of the children already had anaemia at enrollment. Children were randomly assigned to one of four groups for 6 months, iron syrup plus malaria chemoprevention, iron containing micronutrient powder plus malaria chemoprevention, malaria chemoprevention alone, or placebo alone. The primary outcome was cognitive development, assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, a well validated tool, measured when children