COHORT PROFILE Cohort Profile: The Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) Nutrition Trial Cohort Study

How did the study come about? In the mid-1960s, protein deficiency was seen as the most important nutritional problem facing the poor in the developing countries, and there was considerable concern that this deficiency affected children’s ability to learn. The Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP), based in Guatemala, became the locus of a series of studies on this subject, that informed the development of a large-scale randomized nutri-tional intervention trial that ran from 1969 to 1977.1,2 The principal hypothesis underlying the intervention was that improved preschool nutrition would accelerate mental development. An examination of the effects on physical growth was also included to verify that the nutritional intervention had biological potency, whic