Diet and cerebral malaria: the effect of famine and refeeding.

In an outbreak of Plasmodium falciparum malaria following refeeding after famine cerebral malaria was restricted to children eating grain. Nomad children consuming a predominantly milk diet were free of this complication despite an equivalent incidence of uncomplicated malaria. Freedom of nomads from cerebral complications may be due to inhibition by the milk diet of rapid division of the parasite combined with delayed recovery after famine of T cell function.