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RCT·pediatrics, clinical nutrition, micronutrients, vitamins, clinical trial·PMC10011595

Vitamin B 12 and/or folic acid supplementation on linear growth: a 6-year follow-up study of a randomised controlled trial in early childhood in North India

The British Journal of Nutrition · 5 authors, 3 centres

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TL;DR

This 6-year follow-up of a factorial RCT in North Indian children found that vitamin B12 supplementation in early childhood had a small, non-significant effect on linear growth overall, but showed a significant benefit in children with low baseline vitamin B12 status.

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546 CHARS

This study is a 6-year follow-up of a factorial, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 1000 North Indian children aged 6–30 months. Children received daily folic acid, vitamin B12, both, or placebo for 6 months. Overall, vitamin B12 supplementation showed a small, non-significant effect on height-for-age z-score (HAZ), and folic acid had no effect. The study's strengths include the original randomised design and robust biomarker data. The findings suggest suboptimal vitamin B12 status limits linear growth in this population.

STUDY TYPE

RCT

SPECIALTY

pediatrics

SUMMARISED BY

AI pipeline

FIDELITY CHECK

100% · A

ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10011595

Vitamin B 12 and/or folic acid supplementation on linear growth: a 6-year follow-up study of a randomised controlled trial in early childhood in North India

The British Journal of Nutrition

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ABSTRACT

Folate and vitamin B 12 are essential for growth. Our objective was to estimate their long-term effects on linear growth in North Indian children. This is a follow-up study of a factorial designed, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 1000 young children. Starting at 6–30 months of age, we gave folic acid (approximately 2 RDA), vitamin B 12 (approximately 2 RDA), both vitamins or a placebo daily for 6 months. Six years after the end of supplementation, we measured height in 791 children. We used the plasma concentrations of cobalamin, folate and total homocysteine to estimate vitamin status. The effect of the interventions, the association between height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) and baseline vitamin status, and the interactions between supplementation and baseline status were estimated in multiple regression models. Mean ( sd ) age at follow-up was 7·4 (0·7) years (range 6 to 9 years). There was a small, non-significant effect of vitamin B 12 on linear growth and no effect of folic acid. We observed a subgroup effect of vitamin B 12 supplementation in those with plasma cobalamin concentration < 200 pmol/l ( P for interaction = 0·01). The effect of vitamin B 12 supplementation in this group was 0·34 HAZ (95 % CI 0·11, 0·58). We found an association between cobalamin status and HAZ in children not given vitamin B 12 ( P for interaction = 0·001). In this group, each doubling of the cobalamin concentration was associated with 0·26 (95 % CI 0·15, 0·38) higher HAZ. Suboptimal vitamin B 12 status in early childhood seemingly limits linear growth in North Indian children.

CITATION EXPORT

Sunita Taneja, Ranadip Chowdhury, Ingrid Kvestad et al.. Vitamin B12 and/or folic acid supplementation on linear growth: a 6-year follow-up study of a randomised controlled trial in early childhood in North India. The British Journal of Nutrition. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114522002343

AUTHORS

5 · 3 CENTRES

Sunita Taneja, Ranadip Chowdhury, Ingrid Kvestad, Nita Bhandari, Tor A. Strand

1 Centre for Health Research and Development, Society for Applied Studies, New Delhi, India
2 Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, West, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bergen, Norway
3 Department of Research, Innlandet Hospital Trust, Lillehammer, Norway