Malnutrition can be treated by encouraging the right gut bacteria
A specially devised diet made from cheap ingredients works well
The best treatment for childhood malnutrition might seem obvious: more, and more nutritious, food. And the standard approach is indeed just that. Over the years, formulae for ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF)—bars and packets of paste intended for moderate cases and made from rice, lentils, sugar, soya oil and milk powder—and similar therapeutic food (RUTF), a nut-based treatment for more severe instances, have been developed. These work. But Tahmeed Ahmed, executive director of the awkwardly named icddr,b, a research institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and his team think they have come up with something better.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Gut reactions”
From the October 1st 2022 edition
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