Trial reportEuropean journal of clinical nutrition2025
Red palm olein supplementation as a potential preventive solution for xerophthalmia among vitamin A-deficient primary schoolchildren: a cluster randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in European journal of clinical nutrition, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03256123 (The Effect of Biscuits Containing Red Palm Oil on School Children With Vitamin A Deficiency in West and East Malaysia), which is not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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The Effect of Biscuits Containing Red Palm Oil on School Children With Vitamin A Deficiency in West and East Malaysia
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of carotenoid-rich red palm olein (RPO) in treating or preventing xerophthalmia among Malaysian rural primary schoolchildren with confirmed vitamin A deficiency (VAD) (plasma retinol <0.70 µmol/L) and marginal vitamin A status (plasma retinol 0.70 to <1.05 µmol/L).
methodsA double-blinded, cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted on 504 schoolchildren aged 8-12 years from ten rural primary schools in Malaysia. The selected schools were randomly assigned into two groups: the experimental group (n = 249) received RPO-enriched biscuits (326.3 µg retinol equivalents/day), while the control group (n = 255) received palm olein (PO)-enriched biscuits for 6 months (4 days/week). Chi-square test and mixed effects logistic regression model were applied to examine the effects of supplementation on the resolution or prevention of xerophthalmia.
resultsAfter 6-month supplementation, a higher resolution rate of xerophthalmia (31.2%) was observed in the experimental group compared to the control group (24.1%), but this difference lacked statistical significance (p = 0.11). Nevertheless, the experimental group showed a significantly higher prevention rate of xerophthalmia (81.8%) or conjunctival xerosis (82.5%) than the control group (56.5% or 57.6%, respectively) after 6-month supplementation (p < 0.001). Moreover, schoolchildren in the experimental group were 4.8 times less likely to develop xerophthalmia compared to the control group.
conclusionA 6-month supplementation of RPO-enriched biscuits demonstrated potential benefits in preventing xerophthalmia or conjunctival xerosis among vitamin A-deficient primary schoolchildren in rural areas of Malaysia. Therefore, RPO may offer a promising preventive solution to xerophthalmia for populations at a high risk of developing VAD. CLINICAL
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03256123).
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Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.