Effect of a 12-mo milk-based micronutrient-fortified drink intervention on children: a systemic analysis of placebo-controlled study dataset

Background Nutritional deficiencies have many immediate and long-term effects on physical and cognitive development outcomes, with the children not achieving their full potential. A milk-based health drink fortified with micronutrients as a part of a daily balanced diet can promote physical and cognitive growth in children by increasing macronutrients and micronutrients availability in the body. The systematic analysis aims to quantify the effect of a formulated health drink on children’s physical, clinical, and cognitive development outcomes. Methods The dataset used in the analysis was obtained from literature and consisted of 900 children between 7 to 12 years of age. These children were distributed equally into the Control group (no micronutrient-fortified health drink is given), Group I (micronutrient-fortified health drink in water), and Group II (micronutrient-fortified health drink in the toned milk). Results The analysis shows that micronutrient-fortified health drinks in water (by 2.1-fold) and toned milk (by 2.5-fold) improve the height gain velocities and anthropometric and body composition parameters. It helped children achieve healthy IAP growth percentiles compared to the control group. The analysis also shows a 1.6- and 2-fold change in the cognitive tests grades in groups I & II, respectively, compared to the control group. Conclusions The analysis indicates that two servings of 33g micronutrient-fortified health drink in water and toned milk for a year significantly improved the gain velocities of anthropometric and body composition parameters, reduced time taken to complete the physical activity task, reduced the number of anaemia and morbidity cases among groups, and improved the scoring grades in cognitive assessment test in studied children population. The IAP data benchmarking clearly indicated that a micronutrient fortified milk-protein-based powder significantly improved children’s overall growth with better health.