Household environmental conditions are associated with enteropathy and impaired growth in rural bangladesh

Audrie Lin, Benjamin F. Arnold, Sadia Afreen, Rie Goto, Tarique Mohammad Nurul Huda, Rashidul Haque, Rubhana Raqib, Leanne Unicomb, Tahmeed Ahmed, John M. Colford, Stephen P. Luby

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We assessed the relationship of fecal environmental contamination and environmental enteropathy. We compared markers of environmental enteropathy, parasite burden, and growth in 119 Bangladeshi children (l 48 months of age) across rural Bangladesh living in different levels of household environmental cleanliness defined by objective indicators of water quality and sanitary and hand-washing infrastructure. Adjusted for potential confounding characteristics, children from clean households had 0.54 SDs (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.06, 1.01) higher height-for-age z scores (HAZs), 0.32 SDs (95% CI = -0.72, 0.08) lower lactulose:mannitol (L:M) ratios in urine, and 0.24 SDs (95% CI = -0.63, 0.16) lower immunoglobulin G endotoxin core antibody (IgG EndoCAb) titers than children from contaminated households. After adjusting for age and sex, a 1-unit increase in the ln L:Mwas associated with a 0.33 SDs decrease in HAZ (95% CI = -0.62, -0.05). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that environmental contamination causes growth faltering mediated through environmental enteropathy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)130-137
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Volume89
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Parasitology
  • Virology
  • Infectious Diseases

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