A nutrition problem could be solved by iron-fortified sweets, scientists suggest.
Children with iron deficiency anemia who are reluctant to take extra vitamins or iron pills might be happier eating a tasty sweet.
Researchers led by Mayang Sari at Helen Keller International in Jakarta maintain that iron-fortified sweets could be an inexpensive way to combat this nutrition problem, particularly prevalent in young children in Southeast Asia.
The investigators studied more than 100 healthy Indonesian nursery school children to determine if the iron-fortified sweets were effective and if the children liked them.
The childrenwere divided into a study group that ate 10 iron-fortified sweets a week for 12 weeks, to ensure a weekly intake of 30 milligrams of iron, and a comparison group that ate non-fortified sweets.
The study group's haemoglobin levels increased about 10 grams by the end of the three months.
In contrast, the comparison group exhibited a haemoglobin increase of aboutfour grams.
The authors report that about 50 per cent of the children were anaemic at the start of the study period and a similar percentage were iron deficient.
After 12 weeks less than 10 per cent were anaemic and less than 20 per cent were iron deficient.
The report continues that almost 90 per cent of the children said they liked the candies and 93 per cent of the mothers said they would choose fortified sweets over the unfortified candies.
Full findings are published in the June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2001;73:1034-1039 and Reuters Health