Vitamin A deficiency is widely prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa
Just ahead of World Food Day, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (http://goo.gl/AwrAkl)
has established that ‘orange’ vitamin A maize increases vitamin A
storage in the body. This maize has been conventionally bred (non-GMO)
to have higher levels of beta-carotene, a naturally occurring plant
pigment that the body then converts into vitamin A.
Lack
of sufficient vitamin A blinds up to 500,000 children annually and
increases the risk of death from disease (such as diarrhea in children).
Vitamin A deficiency is widely prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Foods
that are good sources of vitamin A, such as orange fruits, dark leafy
vegetables, or meat, are not always available, or may be too expensive
in some regions. In many African countries, people eat large amounts of
staple foods like cassava or maize. For example, in Zambia, people eat
up to a pound of white maize daily. However, this white maize provides
no beta-carotene. Switching to orange maize, which is rich in
beta-carotene, could potentially provide maize-dependent populations
with up to half their daily vitamin A needs.
In
this controlled efficacy study, children from the Eastern Province of
Zambia were randomly assigned to three feeding groups and received
either white maize, orange maize, or a daily vitamin A supplement. After
three months, both groups that received either the orange maize or
vitamin A supplements showed significant increases in their total body
stores of vitamin A, with no changes observed in the group that received
white maize.
Lead
scientist Sherry Tanumihardjo said “we were surprised to find that most
of the children in this study already had substantial stores of vitamin
A. We attribute this to the success of fortifying sugar with vitamin A,
the provision of vitamin A supplements to young children, and perhaps
better diets. Yet, despite having adequate vitamin A stores, we still
saw this store increase in children as a result of eating the orange
maize. So, I’m confident that orange maize would be especially
effective in increasing body stores of vitamin A in populations
suffering from vitamin A deficiency.” Unlike the form of vitamin A found
in supplements and fortified foods, the body regulates conversion of
beta-carotene into vitamin A, and consuming high levels of beta-carotene
is not harmful to health.
Several orange maize varieties have been released by the governments of Zambia and Nigeria. In Zambia, HarvestPlus (http://www.harvestplus.org)
has provided orange maize to more than 10,000 farming households and is
now working with the private sector with the goal of reaching 100,000
famers by 2015. According to Eliab Simpungwe, HarvestPlus Country
Manager for Zambia, “the orange maize has been embraced by consumers
once they have had a chance to taste it. When they also understand the
benefits of vitamin A in the diets they are all the more enthusiastic
about orange maize.” The orange maize varieties released are also high
yielding, disease and virus resistant, and drought tolerant.
The
Zambian Government has officially recognized biofortification, which it
includes in the National Food and Nutrition Strategic Plan for Zambia
2011-2015. Musonda Mofu, Acting Executive Director of the National Food
and Nutrition Commission in Zambia and who was also on the study team,
said “there are still many pockets where vitamin A deficiency remains a
problem in Zambia. Food-based approaches such as orange maize can
provide people—especially women and children—with a good portion of
their daily vitamin A needs through nshima or other traditional foods
made from maize, that we Zambians eat every day. For us, this is
cost-effective and a safe approach to improving nutrition.”
HarvestPlus
and its partners have developed and disseminated other conventionally
bred crops to provide needed vitamins and minerals in the diet. These
are vitamin A cassava (Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria), vitamin A
orange sweet potato (throughout Sub-Saharan Africa) and iron beans
(Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda). Zinc wheat and rice and
iron pearl millet have been targeted to South Asia.
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