Infantile gastroenteritis or infectious diarrhea of infancy remains a serious pediatric problem worldwide. It has been estimated that during 1975 500 million episodes of diarrhea occurred among the babies and young children of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, killing between 5 million and 18 million of them.1 Only improvements in the socioeconomic conditions, housing, education, and nutritional status of these communities will result in diarrheal disease receding from its present position as the major cause of death of infants and young children. In the interim an attempt must be made to reduce the high mortality which is due firstly, in the acute phase, to water and electrolyte loss and secondly, in the later stages, to the diarrhea leading to further debility, malnutrition, and the well-known vicious cycle of undernutrition and gastroenteritis.
A fortified corn/soy atole increases growth, decreases morbidity and improves nutritional status in urban Guatemalan toddlers and young children
