A clinical study recently published in the Journal of Nutritional Science and the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics showed that nutritionally at-risk children were able to achieve their normal growth in weight in as fast as eight weeks after taking oral nutritional supplement (ONS) daily plus dietary counseling.
The published manuscript entitled Longitudinal Growth and Health Outcomes in Nutritionally At-Risk Children Who Received Long-Term Nutritional Intervention involved a 48-week nutrition trial for 199 Filipino children ages 3 to 4 who were at-risk of under nutrition.
Twice daily, the children were given an oral nutritional supplement to meet their daily-recommended micronutrient intake level. At the same time, their parents were given nutritional counseling on food groups, appropriate portion sizes, limiting high-sugar foods, and providing a positive eating atmosphere.
According to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute’s (FNRI) own study conducted from 2013 to 2015, the prevalence of stunted growth among Filipino children under 5 years old increased from 30.3% in 2013 to 33.4% in 2015. The prevalence of stunting among Filipino children from rural areas grew higher at 38.1% in 2015 from 34.9% in 2013 compared with the prevalence of stunted growth among Filipino children from urban cities, which rose to 28.3% in 2015 from 25.7% in 20133.
The World Health Organization defines stunting as “the impaired growth and development that children experience”. It affects all social economic classes, and is driven by recurrent infections and a lack of essential nutrients for growth. “To promote healthy growth in children, nutrition should include a complete range of nutrients in balanced amounts. Child nutrition supplement, such as PediaSure Plus, helps fill in the nutritional gaps for children with suboptimal growth,” said Dr. Low Yen Ling, area center director of Abbott’s Nutrition Research and Development Asia-Pacific Center.
The clinical study sought to assess the impact of ONS on “nutritional adequacy, dietary diversity, food intake, and longitudinal growth” in nutritionally at-risk children. After the first four weeks of trial with ONS, the children showed [on average] 12.1% increase in weight and 12.8% in height, becoming relatively stable from the fourth week onwards. They gained [on average] about 0.5 kg during the first four weeks, and 0.3 kg during the next four weeks. On average, their height also increased steadily by 0.5 cm every four weeks. Generally, the children likewise increased their appetite and physical activity. More importantly, there was a reduction in the number of sick days from the sixteenth week onwards – from an average of 2.2 sick days on week 16 to an average of 1.6 on week 48.
This clinical study, which was approved by the Institutional Review Board and the Food and Drug Administration of the Philippines, was an initiative of Abbott as part of the company’s global commitment to help children achieve their maximum growth potential. The oral nutritional supplementation used was PediaSure Plus, a complete and balanced nutrition supplement designed to support children ages three and older with growth and development concerns.
Overall, the clinical study concludes that initial dietary counseling and daily intake of ONS are effective in improving weight, height, and immune system of nutritionally at-risk children under 5 years of age – reinforcing the importance for parents and healthcare providers to regularly monitor children’s growth, especially during the first 5 years of life.
“The first 5 years of a child’s life set the foundation for a lifetime of healthy growth,” says Dr. Sanja Kolaček, chief of the Referral Center for Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition in the Children’s Hospital Zagreb, Croatia. “This is why it’s important to focus on proper nutrition and nutrition education during these early years to promote healthy growth and prevent stunting. This also applies to children with diseases.”
Recognizing that proper nutrition is important in achieving a child’s optimal growth and development, Abbott is committed to developing complete nutritional supplement products for parents concerned with their children’s growth. In the Philippines, Abbott marks 80 years as the leader in science and nutrition, providing nutritional products for every stage of life.