"Current guidelines for universal supplementation with iron and folic acid should be revised," says Professor Robert Black, of Johns Hopkins University in a report in The Lancet medical journal.
"Our findings indicate a potential risk of routine supplementation with iron and folic acid in pre-school children in a population with high rates of malaria and other infections," says Black.
The scientist, according to the report, stopped the iron and folic acid arms of the study early after discovering that children taking the supplements had a 12 percent higher risk of being hospitalized with severe illness than those in the placebo group.
