Trial reportMaternal & child nutrition2014
Effectiveness of milk whey protein-based ready-to-use therapeutic food in treatment of severe acute malnutrition in Malawian under-5 children: a randomised, double-blind, controlled non-inferiority clinical trial.
Trial report in Maternal & child nutrition, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Community-Based Interventions for Childhood Undernutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) Containing Low or No Dairy Compared to Standard RUTF for Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Pooled it
- Postdischarge interventions for children hospitalized with severe acute malnutrition: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) for home-based nutritional rehabilitation of severe acute malnutrition in children from six months to five years of age.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Effects of Formula-100 therapeutic milk andNarra J · 2024Trial
- Effectiveness of a monthly schedule of follow-up for the treatment of uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition in Sokoto, Nigeria: A cluster randomized crossover trial.PLoS medicine · 2022Trial
- Impact of reduced dose of ready-to-use therapeutic foods in children with uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition: A randomised non-inferiority trial in Burkina Faso.PLoS medicine · 2019Trial
- Trial
- A Global Scoping Review on Alternative Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Article
- Weight gain among children under five with severe malnutrition in therapeutic feeding programmes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Nutrient Composition, Sensory Qualities, and Acceptability of Locally Prepared Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food in Northern Ghana's Hospital Settings.Food science & nutrition · 2025Article
- Review
- Severe Acute Malnutrition: The Potential of Non-Peanut, Non-Milk Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods.Current nutrition reports · 2023Review
- Nutrition status and morbidity of Ethiopian children after recovery from severe acute malnutrition: Prospective matched cohort study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Nutrition in HIV-Infected Infants and Children: Current Knowledge, Existing Challenges, and New Dietary Management Opportunities.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Review
- Development of milk drink with whey fermented and acceptability by children and adolescents.Journal of food science and technology · 2021Article
- Article
- Article
- Effectiveness of interventions to manage acute malnutrition in children under 5 years of age in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.Campbell systematic reviews · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The cost of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) used in community-based management of acute malnutrition has been a major obstacle to the scale up of this important child survival strategy. The current standard recipe for RUTF [peanut-based RUTF (P-RUTF)] is made from peanut paste, milk powder, oil, sugar, and minerals and vitamins. Milk powder forms about 30% of the ingredients and may represent over half the cost of the final product. The quality of whey protein concentrates 34% (WPC34) is similar to that of dried skimmed milk (DSM) used in the standard recipe and can be 25-33% cheaper. This blinded, parallel group, randomised, controlled non-inferiority clinical trial tested the effectiveness in treating severe acute malnutrition (SAM) of a new RUTF formulation WPC-RUTF in which WPC34 was used to replace DSM. Average weight gain (non-inferiority margin Δ = -1.2 g kg(-1) day(-1) ) and recovery rate (Δ = -10%) were the primary outcomes, and length of stay (LOS) was the secondary outcome (Δ = +14 days). Both per-protocol (PP) and intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses showed that WPC-RUTF was not inferior to P-RUTF for recovery rate [difference and its 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.5% (95% CI -2.7, 3.7) in PP analysis and 0.6% (95% CI -5.2, 6.3) in ITT analysis] for average weight gain [0.2 (-0.5; 0.9) for both analyses] and LOS [-1.6 days (95% CI, -4.6, 1.4 days) in PP analysis and -1.9 days (95% CI, -4.6, 0.8 days) for ITT analysis]. In conclusion, whey protein-based RUTF is an effective cheaper alternative to the standard milk-based RUTF for the treatment of SAM.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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 OpenQuestion graph.