Iron Deficiency Anemia correlates with Cognitive Performances of Schoolchildren in Morocco
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1
Ibn Tofail University, Biology and Health laboratory, Neuroscience and Nutrition Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences, Morocco
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2
Charles De Gaulle University , UFR of Psychology, France
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3
UPMF, Laboratory of Psychology and NeuroCogntion (LPNC), France
Introduction: Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has negative effects on cognitive development. Many studies have revealed this association. Some of them emphasized that the incidence of IDA at early age will have more deleterious consequences later in life. This aim of this study if to determine the association between iron status and cognitive scores of rural schoolchildren in North western Morocco.
Methods: All the 296 primary schoolchildren aged from 6 to 16 years old were observed in a rural setting. Iron status including Hemoglobin rate and serum ferritin were measured according to international standards.
A battery of psychological and cognitive test was performed. Raven Progressive Matrix to measure the inductive component of intelligence and the bells barrage to determine visual attention and visual strategy. The maximum score attainable for Raven is 60 while it is 35 for the bells.
Results: Ferritin cut off point of 15µg/dl has showed that 76 children are iron deficient (ID) with 36 of them physiologically anemic according to their hemoglobin level under 11.5 g/dl. The respective prevalence was 20.4 % and 12% for ID and anemia.
Anemic children have performed less in Raven score (14.6 ± 9.7) than non anemic (18.4 ± 10.4) but have scored nearly the same average in Bells test (22.7± 7.3) and (22.7± 8.3) respectively. The results revealed that serum ferritin status is associated with school performance assessed by the average Math’s score and the annual score with Pearson R- correlation values respectively 0.57 and 0.70. Theses correlations are statistically significant according the logistic regression test. Compared to the French population standards 77.9% of the anemic children might have an intellectual delay against 68.5% for non anemic children (p=0.035).
Conclusion: Anemia needs to be treated and iron status should be adjusted in this school. Iron status is associated to the intellectual score but not to the visual attention in this study. A follow up study is planned with the partnership of the health delegation. Furthermore cooperation is underway to perform fMRI explorations to conclude on the kinetics of iron in anemic children subjected to different cognitive tasks.
Keywords:
Anemia,
iron deficiency
Conference:
2nd NEUROMED Workshop, Fez, Morocco, 10 Jun - 12 Jun, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster session 1: Neurodegenerative diseases
Citation:
Aboussaleh
Y,
Ahami
AO,
Hioui
M,
Rusinek
S and
Bonthoux
F
(2010). Iron Deficiency Anemia correlates with Cognitive Performances of Schoolchildren in Morocco.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
2nd NEUROMED Workshop.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.12.00007
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Received:
03 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
03 Jun 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Youssef Aboussaleh, Ibn Tofail University, Biology and Health laboratory, Neuroscience and Nutrition Research Unit, Faculty of Sciences, Kenitra, Morocco, youssef.aboussaleh@uit.ac.ma