The role of maternal nutrition in growth and health of Indonesian infants: a focus on vitamin A and iron

Nutrition during pregnancy is important for women's health, pregnancy outcome, and infant growth and health. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether weekly supplementation with iron and vitamin A of pregnant women improves growth and health, as indicated by reduced morbidity and improved mental and psychomotor development, of their infants. At18 weeks of pregnancy, women from 5 villages were randomly assigned on an individual basis to supervised, double-masked supplementation once weekly from enrolment until delivery. Supplementation comprised 120 mg iron as Fe 2 SO 4 and 500μg folic acid with (n =121) or without (n=122) 4800 RE vitamin A. Pregnant women participating in the ongoing national iron supplementation programme and receiving iron/folic acid tablets through medical services were recruited at the same time from 4 neighbouring villages ('daily' group, n= 123). Compliance with iron tablet intake in this group was expected to be very low. Newborn infants were followed up at least until 1 year of age.At4 months of age, infants in the weekly vitamin A plus iron group had significantly higher serum retinol concentrations than infants in the weekly iron group. However, in all groups &gt;70% of the infants had serum retinol concentrations &lt;0.70μmol/L. Higher serum retinol levels were associated with better growth and nutritional status during the first 6 months of life. Iron status did not differ among groups, while 29% of the infants had a haemoglobin concentration &lt;100 g/L and only 3 infants had a serum ferritin concentration &lt;12μg/L. During the first year of life, anthropometric parameters, morbidity and mental and psychomotor development of infants, whose mothers were supplemented with vitamin A plus iron during pregnancy, did not differ from those whose mothers had received iron alone. In addition, none of the investigated parameters differed between the infants in the weekly iron supplementation group and infants in the 'daily' group. Growth faltering of infants started at 6 months of age and led to high prevalence of stunting (24%) and underweight (32%) at 12 months of age. Almost all infants were breast-fed during the whole follow up period. Neonatal weight and length, reflecting prenatal factors, were the strongest predictors of growth and nutritional status of infants at 12 months of age. In addition, maternal weight and height at18 weeks of pregnancy, housing, and postnatal variables such as intake of certain food groups and morbidity were predictors of growth and nutritional status of infants at 12 months of age. In conclusion, vitamin A supplementation in concurrence of iron supplementation of pregnant women does not improve growth or health of their infants. However, it improved vitamin A status of their infants at4 months of age. Considering the association between growth and vitamin A status, and the high prevalence of serum retinol levels &lt;0.70μmol/L, vitamin A intake during infancy may need to be increased. However, in order to optimise nutritional status and growth of infants the whole life cycle should be considered.</p

Vitamin A and iron supplementation of Indonesian pregnant women benefits vitamin A status of their infants

Many Indonesian infants have an inadequate nutritional status, which may be due in part to inadequate maternal nutrition during pregnancy. This study was designed to investigate whether infant nutritional status could be improved by maternal vitamin A and Fe supplementation during gestation. Mothers of these infants from five villages had been randomly assigned on an individual basis, supervised and double-blind, to receive supplementation once weekly from approximately 18 weeks of pregnancy until delivery. Supplementation comprised 120 mg Fe and 500 μg folic acid with or without 4800 retinol equivalent vitamin A. Mothers of infants from four other villages who participated in the national Fe and folic acid supplementation programme were also recruited; intake of tablets was not supervised. Anthropometric and biochemical parameters of infants and their mothers were assessed approximately 4 months after delivery. Infants of mothers supplemented with vitamin A plus Fe had higher serum retinol concentrations than infants of mothers supplemented with Fe alone. However, the proportion of infants with serum retinol concentrations 70 n all groups. Maternal and infant serum retinol concentrations were correlated. Fe status, weight and length of infants were similar in all groups. Fe status of girls was better than that of boys, but boys were heavier and longer. We conclude that supplementation with vitamin A in conjunction with Fe supplementation of women during pregnancy benefits vitamin A status of their infants. However, considering the large proportion of infants with marginal serum retinol concentrations, it may still be necessary to increase their vitamin A intake

Factors affecting estrus and fertility of Holstein heifers after prostaglandin F2α

Stage of the estrous cycle, time of insemination, and season of the year were examined for their influence on estrus and fertility of 223 Holstein heifers after prostaglandin F2α(PGF). Heifers given PGF early in the estrous cycle (days 5 to 8 where estrus = day 0) had shorter intervals (by 11 hr) to heat than heifers given PGF later in the cycle (days 14 to 16). Heats also were more closely synchronized for heifers treated early in the cycle. Season of the year had no effects on the interval to estrus or on proportion of heifers observed in heat. Conception rates were highest when heifers were bred after estrous detection. Inseminations by appointment at 80 hr after PGF reduced conception for heifers treated early in their estrous cycles. Variability of intervals to estrus can reduce fertility, if heifers are only bred at 80 hr after PGF without regard to when estrus occurred.; Dairy Day, 1984, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 1984

Comment on "Resolving the 180-deg Ambiguity in Solar Vector Magnetic Field Data: Evaluating the Effects of Noise, Spatial Resolution, and Method Assumptions"

In a recent paper, Leka at al. (Solar Phys. 260, 83, 2009)constructed a synthetic vector magnetogram representing a three-dimensional magnetic structure defined only within a fraction of an arcsec in height. They rebinned the magnetogram to simulate conditions of limited spatial resolution and then compared the results of various azimuth disambiguation methods on the resampled data. Methods relying on the physical calculation of potential and/or non-potential magnetic fields failed in nearly the same, extended parts of the field of view and Leka et al. (2009) attributed these failures to the limited spatial resolution. This study shows that the failure of these methods is not due to the limited spatial resolution but due to the narrowly defined test data. Such narrow magnetic structures are not realistic in the real Sun. Physics-based disambiguation methods, adapted for solar magnetic fields extending to infinity, are not designed to handle such data; hence, they could only fail this test. I demonstrate how an appropriate limited-resolution disambiguation test can be performed by constructing a synthetic vector magnetogram very similar to that of Leka et al. (2009) but representing a structure defined in the semi-infinite space above the solar photosphere. For this magnetogram I find that even a simple potential-field disambiguation method manages to resolve the ambiguity very successfully, regardless of limited spatial resolution. Therefore, despite the conclusions of Leka et al. (2009), a proper limited-spatial-resolution test of azimuth disambiguation methods is yet to be performed in order to identify the best ideas and algorithms.Comment: Solar Physics, in press (19 pp., 5 figures, 2 tables

1/N_c- expansion of the quark condensate at finite temperature

Previously the quark and meson properties in a many quark system at finite temperature have been studied within effective QCD approaches in the Hartree approximation. In the present paper we consider the influence of the mesonic correlations on the quark self-energy and on the quark propagator within a systematic $1/N_c$- expansion. Using a general separable ansatz for the nonlocal interaction, we derive a selfconsistent equation for the $1/N_c$ correction to the quark propagator. For a separable model with cut-off formfactor, we obtain a decrease of the condensate of the order of 20\% at zero temperature. A lowering the critical temperature for the onset of the chiral restoration transition due to the inclusion of mesonic correlations is obtained what seems to be closer to the results from lattice calculations.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 5 figure

Jamming coverage in competitive random sequential adsorption of binary mixture

We propose a generalized car parking problem where cars of two different sizes are sequentially parked on a line with a given probability $q$. The free parameter $q$ interpolates between the classical car parking problem of only one car size and the competitive random sequential adsorption (CRSA) of a binary mixture. We give an exact solution to the CRSA rate equations and find that the final coverage, the jamming limit, of the line is always larger for a binary mixture than for the uni-sized case. The analytical results are in good agreement with our direct numerical simulations of the problem.Comment: 4 pages 2-column RevTeX, Four figures, (there was an error in the previous version. We replaced it (including figures) with corrected and improved version that lead to new results and conclusions

The impact of menstruation persistence or recovery after chemotherapy on survival in young patients with hormone receptor negative breast cancer

Introduction: Hormone replacement therapy can diminish hormone depletion-related complaints in postmenopausal women, but is contraindicated for postmenopausal breast cancer (BC) patients. Recovery of menstruation after chemotherapy-induced amenorrhea in young hormone receptor-negative BC patients however, is accepted. To determine the safety of this strategy, we investigated the effect of recovery of menstruation on disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in young hormone receptor-negative BC patients treated with (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: We selected 636 patients from a single-center cohort with early stage hormone receptornegative BC and under the age of 50 years when treated with chemotherapy. Sufficient data on course of menstruation in medical records was retrospectively found for 397 patients, of whom 299 patients (75%) had a recovery of menstruation after chemotherapy. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HR) for the effect of recovery of menstruation on DFS and OS. Results: Patients with recovery of menstruation after chemotherapy less frequ

Mental and psychomotor development in Indonesian infants of mothers supplemented with vitamin A in addition to iron during pregnancy

Maternal nutrition is important for fetal development, but its impact on the functional outcome of infants is still unclear. The present study investigated the effects of vitamin A and Fe supplementation during gestation on infant mental and psychomotor development. Mothers of infants from five villages in Indonesia were randomly assigned to supervised, double-blind supplementation once per week from approximately 18 weeks of pregnancy until delivery. Supplementation comprised 120 mg Fe + 500 µg folic acid with (n 94) or without (n 94) 4800 µg retinol in the form of retinyl acetate. Mothers of infants who participated in the national Fe+folic acid supplementation programme, but whose intake of supplements was not supervised, were recruited from four other villages (n 88). The mental and psychomotor development of infants was assessed, either at 6 or 12 months of age, using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID). We found no impact of vitamin A supplementation on mental or psychomotor development of infants. In addition, infants whose mothers had received weekly Fe supplementation had similar mental and psychomotor indices as those whose mothers had participated in the governmental Fe supplementation programme. The study population was moderately Fe and vitamin A deficient. The size of the treatment groups was large enough to detect a mean difference of 10 points on the BSID, which is less than 1 sd (15 points) of the average performance of an infant on the BSID. In conclusion, the present study did not find an impact of weekly supplementation of 4800 RE vitamin A in addition to Fe during gestation on functional development of Indonesian infants. However, smaller improvements in development may be seen if studied in a larger and/or more deficient population