Micronutrient powders to combat anemia in young children: does it work?

Frank T. Wieringa

In developing countries, anemia and iron deficiency in early childhood are two highly prevalent public health problems. Providing caregivers with a powder containing multiple vitamins and minerals (also known as micronutrient powder or MNP) as a food supplement is a widely used strategy to combat these problems. However, concerns exist around MNP programs with regards to effectiveness and potential negative impact on diarrheal disease prevalence and gut flora. Teshome et al. (BMC Medicine 15:89, 2017) recently tested a MNP with a new iron formulation, iron-EDTA, which has a potentially higher bioavailability and thus requires a lower iron content. Nevertheless, neither the new formulation nor the standard formulation decreased anemia prevalence as compared to a control MNP without iron. However, in all groups, anemia prevalence was reduced after 30 days of intervention, and iron deficiency prevalence was significantly lower in children receiving iron-EDTA, showing that the new formulation holds promise. More research is needed to verify whether the lower iron content of these MNPs can also reduce the prevalence of associated side effects.Please see related article: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0839-z .