EFFECT OF SUPPLEMENTATION WITH AN IRON-FORTIFIED MILK ON INCIDENCE OFDIARRHEA AND RESPIRATORY-INFECTION IN URBAN-RESIDENT INFANTS

To address the hypothesis that increased infectious morbidity is assoc iated with iron supplementation, 783 randomly selected infants were pr ovided with a powdered full fat cow's milk (non-fortified group) and 8 72 with a powdered acidified full fat cow's milk fortified with 15 mg of iron as ferrous sulfate (fortified group). All infants were followe d from birth to 15 months of age with a monthly home visit by a nurse who recorded morbidity occurring during the previous 30 days. At 9 mon ths of age, 15% of infants in each cohort were receiving breast milk o nly; data for these infants were segregated to make the third group, E pisodes (mean +/- SD) of diarrhea/infant/year were 1.06 +/- 1.29, 1.14 +/- 1.37, and 0.82 +/- 1.04 for the fortified, non-fortified and brea st-fed groups, respectively; the fortified and non-fortified bottle-fe d groups had a very similar incidence of respiratory illness; 2.66 +/- 2.07 and 2.74 +/- 2.24 episodes/infant/year, respectively. The incide nce of respiratory illness for both bottle-fed groups was significantl y higher than that for the breast-fed group (2.22 +/- 1.84 respiratory espisodes/infant/year). We conclude that for the infants the tested f orm of iron fortified milk, which is sufficient to lower iron deficien cy anemia, does not result in an increased incidence of diarrhea or re spiratory illness.