Resting metabolic rate in malnourished babies in relation to total body potassium

Fasting metabolic rate was investigated in 53 malnourished children and 17 controls of similar age. Total body potassium (TBK) was also measured in 18 of the malnourished children and in all the controls, so that metabolic rates could be compared in relation to a measure of metabolically active tissue. In newly admitted malnourished children specific potassium depletion was corrected orally while they were given a maintenance diet. Resting metabolism correlated better with TBK than with weight, height or surface area in control and recovered children, but metabolic rate per unit TBK decline with increasing body-weight (r=-0.51). This negative correlation became insignificant if metabolic rate was expressed in terms of TBK3/4. In the malnourished children resting metabolic rate was reduced compared with control and recovered values, when expressed in terms of weight, height or surface area. The results were confirmed by a comparison of metabolic rates per unit TBK3/4, which showed a reduction of about 27 percent in the malnourished children. No significant difference was found between children with marasmus and those with oedematous malnutrition. During rapid growth fasting metabolism was increased. We conclude that oxygen consumption in metabolically active tissues is reduced in all forms of untreated infantile malnutrition. (AU)

Iron fortification of dried skim milk and maize-soya-bean-milk mixture (CSM): availability of iron in Jamaican infants

The availability of iron added to dried skim milk and to maize-soya-bean-milk mixture (CMS) was measured by whole-body counting in thirty clinically healthy children and compared with the availability of Fe from ferrous ascorbate alone. The mean absorption of Fe added as ferrous sulphate to a test meal of dried skim milk was 9.5 percent when the test meal was given as a sweetened drink. When maize meal was added to the dried skim milk to produce a porridge the mean absorption of the supplementary Fe was reduced to 6.3 percent. The mean absorption of Fe given as ferrous ascorbate alone was 59.6 percent. These results differed from those reported for indirect tests done with animals in which the absorption of inorganic Fe added to milk-based feed preparations for infants was substantially greater than that of dietary Fe. The mean absorption of Fe added as ferrous fumarate to a test meal of maize-soya-bean-milk mixture was 6.0 percent, whereas that of Fe given as ferrous ascorbate alone was 63.5 percent. The amount of supplementary Fe added to maize-soya-bean-milk mixture (USA Department of Agriculture specification) was considered to be adequate. (AU)

The prediction of total body fat from simple field anthropometry

This paper postulates a simple method of deriving total body fat from measurements commonly taken in field anthropometry. It proposes a model and tests it with a sample of young children in Jamaica against alternative measurements of body composition derived from estimates of total body potassium obtained in a liquid scintillation counter