Non-anemic Iron Deficiency from Birth to Weaning Does Not Impair Growth or Memory in Piglets.

ABSTRACT: Early iron deficiency is associated with impaired (cognitive) development, the severity of which depends on the timing and duration of the under-supply of iron. To design effective treatment and prevention strategies for iron deficiency in humans, suited animal models are needed. In an earlier study (Antonides et al., 2015b) we separated 10 pairs of piglets from their mothers within a few days after birth and reared one sibling with artificial iron-deficient (ID) and the other with balanced control milk until weaning. ID piglets grew slower and showed poorer reference memory (RM) performance than their controls in a spatial holeboard task, even weeks after iron repletion. One putative intervening factor in that study was pre-weaning maternal deprivation. In an attempt to refine the piglet

SUBMITTER: Antonides A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4905972 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature