Dietary Iron is Associated with Memory in Midlife: Longitudinal Cohort Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This work examined associations between dietary iron and cognitive function in mid-life adults using data from the 1946 British Birth Cohort, a representative population-based sample of men and women born in England, Scotland or Wales. Linear regression was used to determine the association between dietary iron intake or a measure of available iron (calculated by adjusting iron intake for dietary modifiers that are known to inhibit or enhance iron absorption) at ages 36, 43 and 53 years and cognitive measures at ages 43 and 53 years. Cognitive measures included verbal memory, assessed by a three-trial 15-word learning task, and speed and concentration, assessed by a timed letter search task. Examining the data cross-sectionally; dietary iron at ages 43 and 53 years was positively and significantly associated with verbal memory after adjustment for potential confounders. Examining the data longitudinally; earlier dietary iron exposure was significantly associated with later verbal memory. No associations were observed between dietary iron and measures of speed and concentration when examining the data both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The current study shows that impaired cognition, specifically memory, resulting from inadequate iron intake may extend beyond childhood and also be present in midlife. This finding, coupled with the high prevalence of people reporting iron intakes below the Lower Reference Nutrition Intake in the UK, provide reason for concern.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".