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Children living in Papua, New Guinea were shown to have slow rates of growth due to genetic and environmental factors, including climate, diet, and disease prevalence. Energy and protein deficiency were the most common nutritional factors associated with slow growth rates of Papua New Guinea children. Protein deficiency is often associated with zinc deficiency, which may also contribute to slowed growth rates. Studies have shown that children of Papua New Guinea have: low zinc intakes; poor absorption of zinc due to consumption of foods that inhibit dietary zinc absorption; increased loss of zinc through perspiration and shedding of skin in the hot climate; and rupture of red blood cells due to malarial infection. The height, weight, hematocrit, hemoglobin, zinc content of the hair, and incidence of malarial infection were assessed in 123 children ranging in age from 2 to 10 years who were from the Wosera subdistrict of Papua New Guinea. Sixty-seven of the children ranging in age from 6 to 10 years were also assessed for dietary intake. Energy, protein, and zinc intakes were deficient in 52, 73, and 76 percent of these children, respectively. Twenty-nine percent of children were stunted in growth, whereas 16 percent were mildly wasted (underweight). Stunted growth and abnormally low zinc content of the hair were more prevalent among males than females. Growth, as indicated by the height-for-age scores, was associated with age, sex, hemoglobin, and hair zinc content. These findings suggest that stunted growth in Wosera children resulted from energy and protein deficiency and was worsened in older male children by zinc deficiency. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Previous research has suggested that iron deficiency (ID) has an adverse effect on the cognitive or mental function and behavior of infants. More specifically, ID appears to reduce attention span. The authors evaluated whether supplementation with iron dextran affects attention span of infants in Papua New Guinea. In this region, many children are ill from both ID and malaria, an infectious disease caused by parasites in the blood. One-year-old infants were studied; 49 infants had received an injection of iron dextran at two months of age while the other 52 received a placebo (inactive) injection of water instead. The researchers measured the total fixation time (TFT) of the infants. TFT is the time in seconds that an infant looks at a visual stimulus or object. Infants with shorter TFT may be at nutritional risk, and longer TFT is thought to indicate better health. As expected, the iron- supplemented babies scored better on TFT than those in the placebo group. The authors concluded that children with adequate iron levels respond to and explore a visual stimulus to a greater extent than unsupplemented, and possibly iron deficient children. But these results were only found with infants who did not have malarial parasites. Children who tested positive for blood parasites scored the same whether they received iron or not; the authors could not readily explain this finding. Another measure of attention, called habituation, was not affected by iron supplementation. Habituation refers to the rate of change in attention to an object that is presented repeatedly. A limitation of this study is that researchers do not fully understand the underlying cognitive process that is measured by TFT.