Beschreibung:
The impact of a nutrition education program combined with an increase in bioavailable dietary iron to treat iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has never been studied in adolescent girls. The impact of an intensive dietary program for the treatment of IDA was studied in 34 intervention and 34 control boarding girls aged 12 to 17 years from Benin. A quasi‐experimental design comprising 4 weeks of nutrition education combined with an increase in the content and bioavailability of dietary iron for 22 weeks was implemented in the intervention school, but not in the control school. A nutrition knowledge questionnaire, 24‐h dietary recalls, anthropometric measurements, iron status indices and screening for malarial and intestinal parasitic infections (IPI) were obtained in both groups. Nutrition knowledge scores and mean intakes of nutrients including dietary iron, absorbable iron and vitamin C were higher in the intervention group (p < 0.05) compared to the control group after 26 weeks. Also, mean hemoglobin and serum ferritin values were higher (122 vs. 113g/L; p = 0.0002; 32 vs. 19µg/L; p = 0.04) in the intervention group, whereas the incidence of anemia (32 vs 85%; p = 0.005) and IDA (26 vs. 56%; p = 0.04) was significantly lower. This study is the first, to our knowledge, to demonstrate in adolescent girls that a multi‐dietary strategy aiming to improve available dietary iron can reduce iron deficiency anemia.