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Physical Activity and Growth of Kenyan School Children with Hookworm, Trichuris trichiura and Ascaris lumbricoides Infections Are Improved after Treatment with Albendazole^{1, 2, 3,}

Program in International Nutrition, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-6301 ^* Kenya Medical Research Centre, a Department of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, P.O. Box 20752, Nairobi, Kenya

Growth, activity, appetite and intestinal helminth infections were compared for 55 Kenyan primary school children with hookworm (93% prevalence), T. trichiura (84% prevalence) and A. lumbricoides (29% prevalence) before and 9 wk after treatment with three 400-mg doses of albendazole (Zentel) or placebo. Fecal samples were examined for helminth eggs using a modified Kato technique. Activity was measured during free-play with motion recorders on the dominant thigh. Children rated their appetites on a 5-point scale. After baseline measurements, children were randomly allocated to the albendazole-treated (n = 28) and placebo (n = 27) groups, treated, and re-examined 9 wk later. At follow-up, egg counts were significantly lower than at baseline in the albendazole-treated group (P 0.002), and gains in activity, reported appetite and most indices of growth were significantly greater for the albendazole-treated group than for the placebo group. We conclude that treatment of undernourished school children for intestinal helminth infections with albendazole may improve growth and appetite and increase spontaneous physical activity.

KEY WORDS: • children • growth • appetite • geohelminths • physical activity

¹ Supported in part by Thrasher Research Fund, SmithKline Beecham, Ltd. and NIH Nutrition Training Grant 2-T32-DK07158.

² Published for the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, May 1991, Seattle, WA [Adams, E. J., Stephenson, L. S., Latham, M. C. & Kinoti, S. N. (1991) Albendazole treatment improves growth and physical activity of Kenyan school children with hookworm, T. trichiura, and A. lumbricoides infections. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 53: A-104, P-30 (abs.)].

³ The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

⁴ To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Manuscript received 25 June 1993. Revision accepted 16 March 1994.

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