Bio-fortified bajra can help improve learning and mental abilities related to perception, attention and memory among adolescent Indians, a recent study has shown.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of Nutrition recently, found that increased levels of iron in bajra or pearl millet due to fortification, helped stem the deleterious effects of iron deficiency, significantly improving nutrition and cognitive performance.

The study was carried out among 140 economically backward children in the age group of 12 and 16 years, studying in boarding schools in Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra, and was jointly done by researchers with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and S.N.D.T. Women’s University in Mumbai.

The volunteers who consumed bhakri (a local flatbread) and shev (a savoury snack) made of iron-rich pearl millet twice a day for six months performed significantly better on all assigned cognitive tasks, as against controls who ate the same diet made from a conventional pearl millet variety.

“If we can improve adolescents’ performance in school by boosting their iron intake, we may also have longer term impacts in terms of their ability to secure a good job, or be admitted to a college programme,” said Samuel Scott, Associate Research Fellow at IFPRI and lead author of the study.

The iron-rich pearl millet variety used in this study, ICTP-8203Fe, is commonly known as Dhanashakti, which means prosperity and strength, and was commercialised in 2012 in Maharashtra by Nirmal Seeds. Tens of thousands of farmers have planted this new iron-rich variety that also provides more zinc, is high yielding, and disease and drought tolerant. Bajra is a staple food for nearly 50 million Indians living in the semi-arid zones of Rajasthan and Gujarat, apart from Maharashtra.

Poor diets lacking in iron limit brain development and learning capacity, hampering the potential of individuals and societies, generation after generation. An estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide are anaemic, and iron deficiency is the leading cause of anaemia. Countries such as India are at the heart of this challenge, as nearly half of all Indian women and children under five are anaemic.

This second such study to show iron bio-fortification can result in functional cognitive improvement. An earlier study late last year using biofortified beans found that Rwandan college students who had meals containing beans that have an iron content double as in normal varieties, had significant benefits.

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to iron deficiency because of periods of rapid growth, the onset of female menstruation, and poor dietary habits. Addressing adolescent iron deficiency is crucial to ending the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition, IFPRI said in a statement.

“Teenage girls are soon entering child bearing years and we know iron status carries over from one generation to the next. Therefore, if we can improve a girl’s iron status in adolescence, it can allow her to enter pregnancy with better iron stores, and that benefit will be conferred in a positive way to the next generation,” said Laura E. Murray-Kolb of PSU and co-author.

Biofortification uses conventional crop breeding to increase micro-nutrient levels, helps address preventable deficiencies of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, vitamin A and zinc.