As many as a third of the world’s people do not meet their physical and intellectual potential because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, according to a report released in New York by UNICEF and The Micronutrient Initiative.
The report is accompanied by individual Damage Assessment Reports that present the most comprehensive picture to date of the toll being taken by vitamin and mineral deficiency in 80 developing countries.
The document sets out the implications of inadequate quantities of vitamins and nutrients:
It means the impairment of hundreds of millions of growing minds and the lowering of national IQs.
It means wholesale damage to immune systems, and the deaths of more than a million children a year.
It means 250, 000 serious birth defects annually, and the deaths of approximately 50, 000 young women a year during pregnancy and childbirth.
And it means the large-scale loss of national energies, intellects, productivity, and growth.
The report notes that solutions to these problems exist and are cost effective, such as fortification of basic food stuffs which have been standard practice in developed countries.
The report Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency: A Global Assessment.
