Iron deficiency and its relation to cognitive function in school

Abstract

Objective: In Honduras there are no studies of iron deficiency and cognition therefore decided to conduct a study as to determine the relationship between iron deficiency and cognitive ability in first-grade public school in Tegucigalpa MDC.

Subjects and materials: case-control study. We performed an initial study of the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia and iron deficiency in public schools in Tegucigalpa first graders in 2010, where children were selected for this study. The children selected were divided into two groups paired according to age, sex and socioeconomic levels and all had normal folate and cobalamin formed as follows: Group 1: children with hemoglobin levels greater than 11.4 g / dl, ferritin below 15 ug / l defined as "children cases." Group 2: Children with hemoglobin levels greater than 11.4 g / dl and ferritin considered normal" control children”. For the determination of iron deficiency in children, we used ferritina. Psychological testing was done to tests to determine cognitive psychological and assessed IQ, attention, memory and learning, maturity, such as Raven, Tomal, Bender, D2-Brickenkamp. Parents of schoolchildren were asked and signed informed consent. Descriptive statistics were applied to detect significant differences between the two studies groups, the test mean differences (t test) with a significant p value less than 0.05.

Results: The mean age in the group of children was 6.49 years cases (0.74 1SD) and children in cases of 6.27 years (0.45 1SD) the differences were not statistically significant (p = 0.26). was found to lower the score in learning and memory in children with low ferritin levels than those with normal ferritin without anemia and both groups were statistically significant differences (p = 0.02) and not so in care scores no differences significant (p = 0.81) between groups.

Conclusions: As we have seen most of the studies in iron-deficient school agree envision a deterioration in that school becoming clear that iron deficiency without anemia have learning problems and thus will affect the use school so they must take urgent and necessary measures to solve this problem entirely preventable.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/rct.v0i10.1063

Revista Ciencia y Tecnología, No. 10, junio 2012 pp 69-80