Impact of long term, low dose B-complex vitamin supplements on vitamin status and psychomotor performance of rural school boys

Abstract

Rural school boys having a very high incidence of biochemical vitamin deficiencies, were supplemented with recommended daily requirement of B-complex vitamins or placebo, for 1 year. The objective was to use the data for deriving the interpretive guidelines for biochemical tests of vitamin nutrition status. The supplemented children had significantly superior biochemical status of riboflavin, pyridoxine and folic acid as judged by erythrocyte glutathione reductase and erythrocyte aspartate aminotransferase activation coefficients, and RBC folate levels respectively. However, even in the supplemented group there was a wide scatter in biochemical values, precluding the use of the data for deriving interpretive guidelines. More than 50 percent of the boys in this group continued to have biochemical evidence of deficiency of one or more vitamins using reported criteria. However, selective psychomotor testing revealed beneficial effects of supplements on arm-hand steadiness test. Thus, functional impact of vitamin supplements may be seen even in the absence of clear-cut clinical or biochemical change.