(OR04-06-23) The Effect of Iron Fortification of Lentils on Blood and Cognitive Status Among Adolescent Girls in Bangladesh

Objectives: Iron deficiency is especially prevalent in low-income countries and rural areas including Bangladesh. The current study aimed to test the hypothesis that the consumption of iron fortified lentils would improve blood iron status as measured by serum ferritin (sFt) and that improvement in iron status would be accompanied by improvements in cognitive performance.

Methods: Participants included 359 adolescent girls recruited from rural adolescent clubs of BRAC, formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, located in four upazilas. The girls consumed ~200 g of cooked lentils over 85 feeding days. A three-arm double-blind cluster-randomized control design included No Lentils (NL) (n=118); Non-fortified Lentil (CL) (n=124); and Fortified Lentil (FL) (n=117) groups. Biomarkers of iron status, i.e., sFt and hemoglobin (Hb) were measured at baseline (BL) and endline (EL) along with five cognitive tasks: Simple Reaction Time Task (SRT); Go/No-Go Task (GNG); Attentional Network Task (ANT); Cued Recognition Task (CRT); and the Sternberg Memory Search Task (SMS).

Results: At BL, Girls in the FL arm had higher sFt compared to the NL and CL arms. No other between-arm difference was observed. At EL, the FL arm girls had higher Hb and sFt levels than both the NL and CL arms. Reaction times from BL to EL in the SRT and GNG decreased for all arms with the largest decrease seen in the FL arm. Plausibility analyses showed that changes in iron status predicted changes in cognitive task performance from BL to EL at different extents.

Conclusions: This study showed the ability to predict changes in cognition through changes in blood biomarkers. Although no improvement in any blood or cognitive measures were found, this study shows that the iron-fortified lentils were protective against the larger decreases seen among girls in the CL or NL arm. Results suggest that adding iron-fortified lentils to a daily diet is beneficial to improve both cognition and blood iron status.

Funding Sources: Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship fund, Nutrition International, and the Agriculture Development Fund from the Government of Saskatchewan.