Relationship between serum aflatoxin concentrations and the nutritional status of children aged 6–24 months from Zambia

Abstract

In Zambia, mothers/caregivers feed their children cereal-based complementary foods that are prone to aflatoxin contamination. This study evaluated the relationship between exposure to aflatoxins and the nutritional status of young children. It covered 400 mothers with children aged 6–24 months. Their nutritional status assessed by measuring weight and height using standard procedures. Serum samples analysed for aflatoxin B1-lysine (AFB1-lys), a reliable biomarker of aflatoxin exposure. Child sickness and age, exposure to aflatoxin in foods, and albumin-normalised AFB1-lys level were found to be significantly (p < .05) associated with child stunting except for child age that was not significant at p = .05. Children with an increase in the blood serum aflatoxin B1 lysine adduct are more likely to be stunted. These results have shown that dietary exposure to aflatoxin could lead to an increase in serum aflatoxin concentrations, both of which are associated with stunting.

Keywords:

• Aflatoxin
• complementary foods
• children
• dietary exposure
• nutritional status
• serum

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support received from the following: CGIAR Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH); The Scaling Up Nutrition Fund in Zambia; Dr. Michael E. Rybak and Dr. Nicholas C. Zitomer of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centre for Environmental Health, Division of Laboratory Sciences, for analysing the serum samples. Also, the Care International in Zambia; the National Food and Nutrition Commission (NFNC) of Zambia; Ministry of Health, Zambia; Mr. Ofodile Sam (IITA-Nigeria) for data analysis; and all the project staff who mobilised communities for the study to be conducted.

Ethical review

This study was ethically reviewed and approved by the University of Zambia Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (UNZABREC) with Assurance No. FWA00000338 and approval number IRB00001131 of IORG0000774. The Zambian Ministry of Health gave technical support.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from the mothers that took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States Government.

Author contributions

Emmanuel Alamu (EA), involved in designing and carrying out the experiment, analysed the data and developed the manuscript. Therese Gondwe (TG), involved in designing and carrying out the experiment and contributed to the development of the manuscript. Juliet Akello (JA), involved in experimenting and contributed to the development of the paper. Busie Maziya-Dixon (BMD), engaged in designing the research, supervised the study and contributed to the development of the article. Mweshi Mukang (MM), involved in designing and contributed to the development of the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and material

The data has been deposited into the IITA CKAN repository database and is freely available to everyone at a request