Childhood Nutrient Mixtures and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes among Children in Mexico City

Abstract

Background: Adequate levels of beneficial nutrients are important for neurodevelopment. Although, nutrients are ingested in combination, considering nutrients as a mixture has not been studied with respect to health.Objective: To examine the impact of childhood nutrient mixtures on neurodevelopment.Methods: Participants included children in the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth Environment and Social Stress (PROGRESS) prospective birth cohort in Mexico City. We assessed child nutrition profiles among 329 children respectively by analyzing components of a food frequency questionnaire. Child neurodevelopmental outcomes at 4-6 years of age were measured using the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (MSCA).Results: We conducted Weighted Quantile Sum regression analyses to calculate indices reflecting “good” and “poor” childhood nutrient mixtures. After adjusting for maternal education, socioeconomic status, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment score at 24-months postpartum and total caloric intake, the poor nutrition index significantly predicted lower scores on memory, quantitative and perceptual MSCA scales (Perceptual B = -1.88, at 95% CI = -3.17, -0.58), while the good nutrition index predicted higher scores on the perceptual scale (Perceptual B = 0.81, at 95% CI = 0.01, 1.61). In the poor nutrition index, higher sodium and saturated fat consumption and lower monounsaturated fat and protein consumption had relatively high weights when predicting poorer scores on various MSCA scales. In the good nutrition index, higher monounsaturated fat and calcium had relatively high weights within the mixture when predicting more favorable perceptual performance.Conclusions: Using a novel statistical method we found that childhood consumption of a mixture of beneficial nutrients had favorable effects on neurodevelopment. Furthermore, certain nutrients appeared to be more important for the development of certain skills and abilities than others were.