Early Influences and Childhood Development. Does Helicobacter Play a Role?

Abstract

In the late 1960s, Rene Dubos showed that a variety of nutritional stress in utero or in early infancy could have dramatic impact on childhood development that was irreversible. This included detectable changes in the brain. Since that time, iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been identified as one of the major nutritional stresses that leads to permanent behavioral changes in both experimental animals and humans resulting in poorer cognitive, motor, and social-emotional function. It has been proposed that these changes play an important part in the inter-generational transmission of poverty. More recently, it is becoming clear that Helicobacter pylori causes IDA in populations on an iron-limiting diet. The main thesis of this article is that H. pylori infection may indeed have an impact on childhood development and that much more research is needed in this area as intervention via immunization or antimicrobial therapy in populations in the developing world may have major positive benefits via cure of IDA and prevention of brain damage in the young.