Effect of plant milk consumption on childhood growth: protocol for a systematic review.

Introduction: There has been considerable debate about whether plant milks can support the nutritional requirements of growing children. The proposed systematic review aims to assess the evidence on the relationship between plant milk consumption and growth and nutritional status in childhood.
Methods and Analysis: Ovid MEDLINE ALL (1946-present), Ovid EMBASE Classic (1947-present), CINAHL Complete (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), Scopus, the Cochrane Library and grey literature will be searched comprehensively (from 2000 to present; English language) to find studies that describe the association between plant milk consumption and growth or nutrition in children 1-18 years of age. Two reviewers will identify eligible articles, extract data and assess the risk of bias in individual studies. If a meta-analyses is not conducted, the evidence will be synthesised narratively and the overall certainty of evidence will be rated using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach.
Ethics and Dissemination: Ethical approval is not required for this study since no data will be collected. Results of the systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Findings from this study may be useful in informing future evidence-based recommendations about plant milk consumption in children.
Prospero Registration Number: CRD42022367269.
Competing Interests: Competing interests: IS (the first author) has been a vegetarian for over 10 years. DJAJ is a vegan. JLM received an unrestricted research grant for a completed investigator-initiated study from the Dairy Farmers of Canada (2011–2012) and D-drops provided non-financial support (vitamin D supplements) for an investigator initiated study on vitamin D and respiratory tract infections (2011–2015). The other authors have no competing interests to disclose.
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