Pediatrician Betsy Lozoff Becomes Seventh Researcher in Medical School to Win Special Merit Award from NIH Her Award Will Allow for Further Research on Iron Deficiency

Rosario Ceballo, Ph.D., (left) assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and a member of Betsy Lozoff’s (right) research team on iron deficiency. Lozoff’s MERIT award from the NIH supports her research in Costa Rica, but she also has research projects on iron deficiency in Chile and India.

Betsy Lozoff, M.D., director of the U-M Center for Human Growth and Development, has received a National Institutes of Health MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award for her work on the long-term behavioral, developmental, and physical effects of iron deficiency—the world’s most common single nutrient deficiency.

Iron deficiency anemia affects roughly 25 percent of the world’s babies, and iron deficiency without anemia affects many more. In 1981, Lozoff, who is also a professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases in the Medical School, began studying a group of 191 Costa Rican babies with iron deficiency and has conducted follow-up studies when the children were 5 years old, 10 to 15 years old, and 15 to 16 years old.

Even though their current health status is excellent, she has found that adolescents who were iron deficient as infants have lower achievement test scores in reading, writing and arithmetic, and more behavior problems, especially related to anxiety and depression.

The new grant will allow Lozoff and her research team to assess cognitive, motor, and emotional functioning at age 19. The goal is to learn how early iron deficiency affects a wide range of behavioral, developmental, and physical characteristics of young adulthood, including the pursuit of higher education, job stability and level, mental health, early childbearing, obesity, stunted growth, and cardiovascular health.

The highly selective MERIT awards, provided to fewer than five percent of NIH investigators, go to researchers who have demonstrated superior competence and outstanding productivity during their previous research endeavors. The awards provide the opportunity to gain up to 10 years of support. Lozoff is one of just a handful of MERIT recipients at the U-M.

Lozoff can be reached at blozoff@umich.edu.