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Maternal nutrition, infants and children

Catch-up growth does not associate with cognitive development in Indian school-age children

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 68, pages 14–18 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives:

Stunting is significantly associated with lifetime morbidity and poorer cognitive outcomes in children. Although several studies have examined the relationship between stunting, catch-up growth and cognitive performance in young populations, this relationship has not yet been explored in school-aged children. In this study, we used data from three different nutritional intervention studies conducted over a 4-year period on school-age children in Bangalore, India to assess these relationships.

Subjects/methods:

A battery of cognitive tests was conducted before each intervention to determine whether stunting status at baseline was related to cognitive performance across four separate domains, and repeated after a 6-month period to assess whether changes to stunting status is related to cognitive advancement.

Results:

Results of independent t-tests showed that while stunted children had significantly poorer performance on short-term memory, retrieval ability and visuospatial ability tests (P=0.023, 0.026 and 0.028, respectively), there was no significant difference in the change in cognitive scores following nutritional interventions over a 6-month period between those who remained stunted and those who were no longer stunted (P>0.10).

Conclusions:

Evidently, stunting remains associated with cognitive ability in school-age children; however, the reversal of these effects in this age group may be quite difficult.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments are extended to the all authors of the primary studies for their contributions to those nutrition intervention studies. We thank Dr Veena Satyanarayana for helping compile the tests scores in different studies to comparable domains. NS completed this project at St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore with funding from the Harvard Global Health Institute. The funding for the studies used in this analysis was provided by entities that are acknowledged in each of the primary papers.

Author contributions

NS, SS, PT and TT analyzed and interpreted the data. NS drafted the manuscript. AVK, KS and TT reviewed the manuscript for intellectual content. T Thomas will act as the guarantor of the study. All authors approved of the submitted and published versions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard College, Cambridge, MA, USA

    N Sokolovic

  2. St. John’s Research Institute, St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bangalore, India

    S Selvam, K Srinivasan, P Thankachan, A V Kurpad & T Thomas

Authors
  1. N Sokolovic
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  2. S Selvam
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  3. K Srinivasan
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  4. P Thankachan
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  5. A V Kurpad
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  6. T Thomas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to T Thomas.

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Competing interests

AVK consults for McCain Foods Ltd. and compensation is directed entirely to charity. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sokolovic, N., Selvam, S., Srinivasan, K. et al. Catch-up growth does not associate with cognitive development in Indian school-age children. Eur J Clin Nutr 68, 14–18 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2013.208

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