Abstract
During the last decades, the quantity of malnourished infants in the developing world has tended to decrease. Iron deficiency continues to be the single most common nutritional deficiency and the main cause of anemia (IDA) in infancy, childhood and pregnancy affecting more than 2,000 million persons worldwide [1]. It is prevalent in most of the developing world and it is probably the only micronutrient deficiency of public health relevance in industrialized countries [2]. In developing countries, the prevalence is usually greatest in infants, whereas in industrialized countries it is present mainly in women. The prevalence of iron deficiency in the developing world is high, due mainly to a low iron intake and/or poor bioavailability. IDA affects 20–40% of the infant population, mainly poor or minority infants worldwide [3–7]. Furthermore, infancy is considered the age range of highest vulnerability for the central nervous system (CNS) because it corresponds to the latter part of the brain growth spurt and the unfolding of fundamental mental and motor processes.
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