NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Chronic protein deficiency may
cause delays in a child's brain development that improve little
over time, a new study shows.

The research was conducted in India, a country with a high
rate of child malnutrition despite its current economic boom.

The World Health Organization estimates that for the years
1990 to 1997, more than half of Indian children younger than 5
were undernourished, according to Dr. Bhoomika R. Kar, from the
University of Allahabad in India, and colleagues.

For their study, published in the online journal Behavioral
and Brain Functions, the researchers assessed the cognitive
development of 20 malnourished children and 20 adequately
nourished children at different ages.

Malnourished children, the researchers found, performed
more poorly than adequately nourished children on most of the
neuropsychological tests they were given.

In particular, malnourished children had problems with
tests of attention, memory, visual perception, verbal
comprehension and other so-called “higher cognitive processes.”

Moreover, there was only minimal improvement with age. The
cognitive performance of malnourished 5- to 7-year-olds was
“poor and much lower” than that of adequately nourished
children their age, and the gap was not much smaller among 8-
to 10-year-olds.

A chronic lack of protein does not seem to affect basic
cognitive processes like movement speed, which is affected in
cases of other nutritional deficiencies, the investigators
note.

The current findings, they say, support numerous other
studies that have shown a “wide range of cognitive deficits” in
malnourished children in India.

SOURCE: Behavioral and Brain Functions, online July 24,
2008.