Researchers examining the nutritional benefits of millets have found that these “smart foods” can boost growth in children and adolescents by 26-39 per cent when they replace rice in standard meals. The results suggest that millets can significantly contribute to overcoming malnutrition.
The study was published in the journal Nutrients and is a review and meta-analysis of eight prior published studies. It was undertaken by seven organizations in four countries and was led by Dr S Anitha, Senior Scientist – Nutrition, at the International Crops Research Institute of the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).
“These results are attributable to the naturally high nutrient content of millets that exhibit high amounts of growth-promoting nutrients, especially total protein, sulphur-containing amino acids, and calcium in the case of finger millets,” said Dr Anitha.
Infants, pre-school and school-going children as well as adolescents were part of the review. Five of the studies in the review used finger millet, one used sorghum and two used a mixture of millets (finger, pearl, foxtail, little and kodo millets).
Among the children fed millet-based meals, a relative increase of 28.2 per cent in mean height, 26 per cent in weight, 39 per cent in the mid-upper arm circumference and 37 per cent in chest circumference was noted when compared to children on regular rice-based diets. The children studied consumed millets over 3 months to 4.5 years.
“These findings provide evidence that nutrition intervention programmes can be developed and adapted to increase diversity in meals using millets, and thus to improve the nutritional content, including in school feeding and mother and child programmes,” said Dr Jacqueline Hughes, Director General, ICRISAT.
Study author Dr Hemalatha, Director at India’s National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), said that implementing millet-based meals required menus to be designed for different age groups utilizing culturally sensitive and tasty recipes. “This should also be complemented with awareness and marketing campaigns to generate an understanding and interest in millets.”
“Millets are a basket of a wide range of nutrients and this growth study is part of four years of work among numerous organizations around the world who partnered to undertake a series of scientific studies on the major health claims of millets, to test the scientific credibility,” noted Professor Ian Givens, a study author and Director, Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, University of Reading, UK.