Schistosoma mansoni infection and nutritional status in schoolchildren: a randomized, double-blind trial in northeastern Brazil

Abstract

Brazilian schoolchildren with mild- to moderate-intensity schistosome infections (<400 Schistosoma mansoni eggs/g stool) were randomly allocated to a treatment (oxamniquine) or placebo group in a double-blind fashion. Anthropometric measurements were made at baseline, 6 mo, and 1 y for 353 students. At baseline, the groups were not significantly different with respect to nutritional status or selected socioeconomic and biological characteristics, including anthropometric measures. One year later, significant differences were noted only in the nutritional status of boys treated for schistosome infection. Treated boys had greater measurements for weight, triceps skinfold thickness, midarm circumference, arm muscle area, and body mass index than untreated boys. They also showed significant increases over the year in weight, height, midarm circumference, and body mass index. The rates of improvement in weight and height were more accelerated in the first 6 mo after therapy than the last. These results indicate that, at least in boys, chronic S. mansoni infection at any intensity is detrimental to short-term growth and development.

Modeling the Effect of Chronic Schistosomiasis on Childhood Development and the Potential for Catch-Up Growth with Different Drug Treatment Strategies Promoted for Control of Endemic Schistosomiasis

“…In each height and weight plot, the thick solid curve represents the desired United States median growth, dashed lines from bottom to top represent, respectively, the community minimum and maximum values as affected by recurrent Schistosoma infection; small dots represent calibration data from field studies, 31 and the thin solid line is the best-fit curve with the parameters shown in Table 1 . stunted than girls when untreated, 29,49 were predicted to experience greater benefits after treatment than girls, for whatever strategy used.…”

Moderate- And Low-Intensity Co-Infections by Intestinal Helminths and Schistosoma Mansoni, Dietary Iron Intake, and Anemia in Brazilian Children

“…For this reason, when analyzed alone or when independent of other risk factors, intestinal helminths may not seem to be a major factor in nutritional deficits, as has been the conclusion of this group in some previous studies. 27,28 A limitation of our cross-sectional study is that it is impossible to determine if polyparasitism proceeds or follows anemia. Therefore, causation cannot be attributed to polyparasitism.…”

Intestinal helminth infections and dietary diversity score predict nutritional status of urban schoolchildren from southern Ethiopia

“…The odds of stunting was 5 times higher among the schoolchildren infected with A.lumbricoides [AOR (95% CI) = 5.0 (2.7, 9. [15,36] and intervention studies that showed improved growth performance after schoolchildren were treated with anthelminthic drugs [37][38][39][40]. Intestinal helminth infections could affect linear growth and nutritional status through several mechanisms including decline in food intake [39,41]; nutrient wastage from blood loss, malabsorption and diarrheal episodes [41,42]; and suppression of hormones required for bone growth like the growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) [43].…”