The metabolism of nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus in undernourished children. II. The effect of supplementary groundnut milk curds on the metabolism of nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus.

The previous communication (Murthy, Reddy, Swaminathan & Subrahmanyan,
1955) reported that undernourished children, subsisting on an inadequate and illbalanced
vegetarian diet, showed a remarkable adaptation to low levels of intake, and
maintained, on the average, slightly positive nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus
balances. The children were stunted, and their rate of growth was very low. In another
publication from this laboratory Subrahmanyan, Reddy, Moorjani, Sur, Doraiswamy,
Sankaran, Bhatia & Swaminathan (1954) reported that supplementation of the diet
of the undernourished children with 12 oz. groundnut-milk curd daily for a period of
6 months produced a marked improvement in their growth and nutritional status,
compared with the performance of a control group receiving a supplement of an
equivalent amount of calories in the form of maize starch-sugar pudding. In view of
the marked improvement observed in the growth and nutritional status of the children,
it was considered to be of interest to study the effect of the groundnut-milk curd
supplement on the metabolism of nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. The results of
this study are here reported.