| dc.description.abstract | Globally about 45% of all deaths in children is attributed to undernutrition. Children who survive
severe undernutrition suffer long-term growth retardation. There is a growing interest in insects
for alleviation of malnutrition due to their energy density, protein quality, vitamins and mineral
contents. Insects can potentially replace dairy and flesh in complementary foods (CFs) in food
insecure settings. In this study, infants 6 months old were exposed to daily serving of insect-based
CF for 8 months, with their mothers exposed to nutrition education were evaluated for linear
growth as primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included skinfolds and dietary diversity. The
study was an experimental randomized controlled trial with 4 study arms. It enrolled 284 mother
infant dyads, randomly assigned to the study arms at Rwambwa Sub-County Hospital. Each dyad
was assigned to a combination of the two treatments: Cricket treatment (+/-CR), and Nutrition
Education treatment (+/-ED). The study CFs were provided monthly as take-home rations adjusted
for age, while +NE sessions were monthly personalized audio-visual sessions with both education
messages and reminder sent to the mother’s mobile phones. Monthly, infant anthropometric,
feeding practices and child health data were collected using structured questionnaires. Gut health
at baseline was tested in a random sample of 40 infants using 13C-Sucrose breath test. Both study
CFs had high acceptability rate of 98.3% and 99.2% for +CR and -CR respectively. The researcher
observed a significant (Z=-0.28 (p=0.03)) height-for-age z-score (HAZ) effect between -CR and
+CR with no significant change in height on either cricket or education treatment. Signifying a
relatively similar growth rate in terms of absolute height. Nutrition education to mothers
significantly improved the weight-for-height (WHZ), irrespective of CFs consumed by a
magnitude of 0.45 WHZ-score. Those suffering more than 3 episodes of illness were significantly
(p=0.03) associated with at least a four times likelihood of suffering acute malnutrition as noted
by low middle upper arm circumference (MUAC). Girls were significantly (p=0.01) 1.98 times
likely to be malnourished by MUAC compared to boys at end-line. The mean cumulative % 13C
sucrose dose recovered in a breath at 90 min from stunted infants was lower compared to the non
stunted. It is supposed that high breastfeeding rates combined with the small difference in nutrients
composition, limited detection of difference in absolute linear growth and stunting effect.
Concluding, this similarity in growth rate in all study arms suggest the potential of insects in
providing healthy protein comparative to the super cereal. The study recommends, uptake of safe,
deliciously prepared cricket porridge to enhance diet diversity, with a call for research on gut health
for more insight on their contribution to human growth.
Key words: infants, insects, crickets, complementary feeding, linear growth, gut health | en_US |
