Effect of Varied Banana Intake on Nitrogen and Mineral Balances of Normal Children

Abstract

The nutritive advantage of supplementary banana in the diets of children has been demonstrated. Roberts and her co-workers 1 have shown that in an institution 123 boys whose diet was supplemented with two or three bananas daily over a nine month period made a slightly greater mean gain in weight and height than a control group ; they also showed slightly greater progress in ossification of the bones of the wrist and greater mean gains in measurements of arm girth, subcutaneous tissue and weight (Franzen measurements) and also in the scores for these items. These authors emphasized that the differences did not in most cases attain statistical significance, but because the investigation was made on matched groups and the results were consistent in direction they expressed the belief that the differences were real ones attributable to the supplement. The nutritive advantage of the banana has been attributed to its excess alkaline-ash value,2 to special physiologic properties of its gave assistance in the standardization of terminology relating to acid-base metabolism, prior to publication of his monograph on mineral metabolism.