The effects of micronutrient interventions on other domains were inconsistent .
Improvement in fluid intelligence among micronutrient-deficient children was consistently reported .
BACKGROUND & AIMS Micronutrients are essential for brain development with deficiencies in specific nutrients linked to impaired cognitive function .
Interventions are shown to be beneficial to children 's mental development , particularly in subjects who were micronutrient-deficient at baseline but results on healthy subjects remain inconsistent .
This systematic review evaluated the effect of micronutrient inventions on different cognitive domains .
Behavioural responses of young anaemic Indian children to iron-folic acid supplements.
1 . Behavioural responses of young anaemic Indian children to iron-folic acid supplements were assessed in two separate studies using the Indian adaptation of Wechsler 's ( 1967 ) intelligence scale for children ( WISC ) . 2 . The first study was an exploratory study in which the cognitive behaviour of 5 - 8-year-old children of both sexes was assessed before and after supplementation with 20 mg elemental Fe and 0.1 mg folic acid given daily for a period of 60 d. 3 . The supplemented children showed a significant improvement in haemoglobin ( Hb ) as well as the WISC scores while the control children who did not receive any supplements failed to show an improvement either in Hb or in the WISC scores . However , within the supplemented group when the initially-anaemic children were compared with the initially-non-anaemic ones , only the 7-year-old anaemic children performed significantly poor in the tests than the non-anaemic group of the same age . The study raised the possibility that in addition to increasing the blood Hb levels , Fe-folic acid supplements may have additional benefits in improving the cognitive performance of children . 4 . In the second study , cognitive behaviour of fourteen matched pairs of anaemic children in the age-range of 5 - 6 years was assessed before and after supplementation with 40 mg Fe and 0.2 mg folic acid given daily in two divided doses or sugar placebos for a period of 60 d. The tester did not know the groups to which each child belonged . 5 . The supplemented children showed a significant improvement in Hb as well as in the verbal and performance IQ of WISC . The control children showed no improvement in Hb but their verbal IQ improved significantly . However , there was no significant improvement in their performance IQ . 6 . The results indicated that Fe-folic acid supplements to anaemic children not only raised Hb levels but also improved intelligence test results , particularly in the performance section
The effects of micronutrient interventions on other domains were inconsistent .
Improvement in fluid intelligence among micronutrient-deficient children was consistently reported .
BACKGROUND & AIMS Micronutrients are essential for brain development with deficiencies in specific nutrients linked to impaired cognitive function .
Interventions are shown to be beneficial to children 's mental development , particularly in subjects who were micronutrient-deficient at baseline but results on healthy subjects remain inconsistent .
This systematic review evaluated the effect of micronutrient inventions on different cognitive domains .