Nutritional Evaluation of Value-Added Products to Enhance Serum Retinol in Children

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major public health nutrition problem in the developing world.It especially affects young children, among whom deficiency can cause xerophthalmia and lead to blindness, limit growth, weaken innate and acquired host defenses, exacerbate infection and increase the risk of death .It is also becoming clear that VAD can extend through school age and adolescent years into adulthood.Supplementary nutrition means identifying and fulfilling the deficiencies of calories, protein, minerals, and vitamins in the existing family diet and taking other measures for nutritional correction and rehabilitation.Vitamin A deficiency is widely prevalent in our country, especially among the pre-school age children.Surveys carried out in the southern and eastern parts of the country reveal that at least 30-50% of the children in pre-school age group have night blindness manifestation because of vitamin A deficiency.Supplementation study was carried out on 45 pre-school children of 2-6 year age for a period of 3 months.Three supplements (-carotene rich) were selected for supplementary feeding based on their organoleptic scores and nutritive value.Forty-five children showing symptoms of moderate deficiency of vitamin A based on clinical assessment were selected with the help of trained doctor.Dietary intake and anthropometric measurements were also taken as criteria for the selection of vitamin A deficient children who were divided into three groups of 15 children each so that all groups had similar dietary intake and anthropometric measurements.Estimation of serum retinol level of selected children was done with the help of trained doctor.Three groups were given any one of the three selected supplements, and group-I served as control, which was given supplement I. Children of group II and III were fed supplements II and III, respectively.At the end of 3 months of feeding trial, the nutritional and vitamin A status of children fed with three supplements was again assessed.Feeding trial indicated that there was a significant reduction in clinical symptoms of various nutritional deficiencies in experimental children after supplementation.The experimental group II and III showed significantly higher increase in serum retinol level than the group I, which was taken as control.The -carotene rich supplements were found suitable for improving vitamin A status among children.