3-MONTH NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTATION IN INDONESIAN INFANTS AND TODDLERS BENEFITS MEMORY FUNCTION 8-Y LATER

Does short-term supplementary feeding during infancy and childhood hav e long-lasting effects? In 1986, 334 children aged 6-60 mo living on r ural tea plantations in West Java, Indonesia, participated in a 3-mo r andomized trial to test the effects of a dietary supplement providing approximate to 1672 kJ (400 kcal) energy/d, with about the same nutrie nt density as local foods. We returned to the same communities in 1994 and enrolled 231 (125 supplemented, 106 control) of the original subj ects in a follow-up study of the long-term effects of supplementation. We assessed these subjects by using several measures: anthropometry, iron status, information processing, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, word fluency, and an arithmetic test. The supplemented group showed no differences from those in the control group. However, when the analys is was limited to subjects who had received the supplement before the age of 18 mo (n = 73), the supplemented children performed better than control children on the Sternberg test of working memory (decision ti me intercept: probe absent, P = 0.002; probe present, P = 0.053). Afte r considering possible confounders, we concluded that the supplementat ion during infancy was responsible for the difference. This finding sh ows that supplementation can have long-lasting effects on a specific d omain if the child receives it at the appropriate stage of development .