Are you sure you don’t belong to either of the groups?

 As you probably have learnt it by now from this blog, micronutrients are essential for the body’s proper functioning. Unfortunately, because of poor quality or not enough quantity, many people suffer from deficiencies, even if they are not aware of it. The major ones are vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiency.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is essential as it participates in development, growth, immune function and reproduction. This vitamin has 2 forms, retinols and carotenoids. The first are present mainly in animal products, and the second one can be found in yellow and orange plants. When it comes to the vision, retinol is used by the retina to convert light into nerve signals.

Deficiency is defined when vitamin A concentration on a tissue is low enough to cause adverse health problems without symptoms of clinical xerophthalmia. Yet the specific and non-specific effects can be the results of other micronutrient deficiencies. It has different stages, night blindness, Bitot’s spots, conjuctival xerosis, active corneal lesions, and corneal scars. In worst cases these terminate in irreversible blindness and death.

Deficiency usually forms because of inappropriate food resources. The reasons for this can be environmental, cultural or not proper development of import system, and public health interventions (e.g. supplements, enforced foods).

In low income countries it’s harder to access food, and even when there is enough the quality might be too poor to provide the body with enough nutrients. Around 250 million children are subclinically deficient and 3 million have some sort of xerophthalmia. The numbers are the highest in the South-East Asian area with 1.45 million of clinical cases, Africa following it with 1.04 million. Moreover, there are groups of population that are more vulnerable than others, including infancy, childhood, pregnant and lactating women and people with infectious disease.

From animal products, liver, cheese and several fish are high in vitamin A. Yellow and orange plants are good resources too, such as sweet potato, winter squash, carrot, and sweet red pepper. And some from the greens as well, like kale, collards, turnip greens and spinach.

Iron

Iron deficiency anemia is the consequence of inadequate iron that is needed for haemoglobin synthesis therefore red blood cells. It can be the result of too low iron intake in the diet, inappropriate absorption or iron loss from the body, especially in stages of life when the requirements are higher, such as pregnancy and infancy. As a consequence of diminished iron storage, the level of haemoglobin is decreased.

In 2011 around 800 million children and women had anemia, which means generally, a decreased number of red blood cells.

Dietary interventions could make the biggest difference in reducing it, such as supplementing together with folic acid or simply alone, fortifying products or consuming foods high in iron.

Iodine

Iodine deficiency is the most widespread and the easiest to prevent. It starts before childbirth and in serious cases it leads to stillbirth and spontaneous abortion and irreversible form of mental disorders. It is mostly common in Asia and Africa. And there is a very easy solution to prevent all this. Maybe you have realized it by now, this is why they make iodized salt. International organizations developed technical guidance to build up national salt iodization programmes.