Acta Paediatr. 1997 Dec; 86(12): 1308-11.

Randomized, controlled, clinical trial of rice versus glucose oral rehydration solutions in infants and young children with acute watery diarrhoea.

Faruque AS, Hoque SS, Fuchs GJ, Mahalanabis D.

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka.

A randomized clinical trial was carried out to compare a packaged ready-to-mix rice oral rehydration solution (ORS) to the standard glucose ORS for the treatment of childhood diarrhoea. Children were of either gender, aged 3-35 months, presenting with a history of watery diarrhoea for 72 h or less. The main outcomes examined were stool output, ORS intake, duration of diarrhoea and nutritional recovery during follow-up at 16 d of illness. Stool output in the first 24 h (106 vs 107 g kg(-1)), ORS intake in clinic (93 vs 102 ml per motion) and duration of diarrhoea (88 h vs 81 h) were similar in the two treatment groups. The few episodes that became persistent were similar (2%) in the two groups. The weight gain during follow-up was similar in the two ORS groups.