Common Problems from Micronutrient Deficiencies

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Table of Contents

Summar
Vitamin A deficiency
Iron Deficiency
Iodine deficiency
Zinc Deficiency
References

Summar

Micronutrients are the combined phrases pertaining to vital vitamins and trace minerals. Insufficient intake of them is now accepted as a significant contributor to the worldwide problems of illness through increased rates of sickness and death from communicable diseases by reducing resistant and non-resistant defenses and by reducing the quality, value, and degree of normal functioning or development, and of impairment such as mental disability.

Vitamin A deficiency

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a widespread cause of avoidable blindness and a risk factor for increased intensity of infectious disease and mortality (Rice, West, and Black 2004). One of the first indications of minimal VAD is night blindness. If VAD gets worse, extra signs of exophthalmia arise, ultimately resulting in blindness.

Iron Deficiency

Deficiency results from inadequate consumption of iron or excess loss. The iron deficit is the main cause of anemia, though vitamin A deficit, folate insufficiency, malaria, and HIV as well result in anemia. Iron deficiency results in neurological disability, which may not be entirely reversible (Grantham-McGregor and Ani 1999). Lastly, iron deficiency is recognized to reduce immune purposes, but some studies have also theorized that shortage defends against infectious illness or that iron supplementation adds to infectious illness (Caulfield, Richard, and Black 2004).

Iodine deficiency

Iodine is essential for the thyroid hormones that control development, growth, and metabolism and is necessary to avoid goiter and cretinism. Insufficient ingestion can result in damaged logical progress and physical development. A variety of disabilities resulting from iodine deficiency are pertained to as iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) (Hetzel 1983) and can comprise fetal loss, stillbirth, congenital irregularities, and hearing injury. The greater part of deficient individuals experiences moderate psychological mental deficiency.

Zinc Deficiency

Zinc is ever-present inside the body and is very important to protein production, cellular development, and cellular separation. Zinc insufficiency results from insufficient ingestion and, to some degree, increased losses. Deficiency can also in effect by losses through diarrheal disease. Clinical appearances of severe deficit comprise of growth abnormality, damaged resistant function, skin disorders, hypogonadism, loss of appetite, and intellectual dysfunction. A mild to moderate shortage of zinc increases vulnerability to disease, and the advantages of zinc supplementation on the resistant system are well recognized (Shankar and Prasad 1998). Zinc can avoid and lessen the severity of diarrhea and pneumonia (Zinc Investigators’ Collaborative Group and others 1999, 2000) and as well may lessen malaria incidence in young children (Caulfield, Richard, and Black 2004).

What are some similarities and differences between macro- and micronutrients? Why is it important to understand what they are and how they work in the body?

Macronutrients make up the greater part of an individual’s diet, “thus providing energy, and the necessary nutrients that are required for development, protection, and activity” (Merck Manual, 1999). Macronutrients consist of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, macro minerals, and water. Micronutrients are vitamins and trace minerals that are tagged as micronutrients for the reason that the body simply needs them in extremely small amounts. Vitamins are natural materials that we consume with our foods, and that “act as an activator, matters that assist to set off other responses in the body” (Schwarzenegger, 1985). Trace minerals are non-living matters that once consumed play a role in a “range of metabolic courses, and add to the mixture of such ingredients as glycogen, protein, and fats” (Schwarzenegger, 1985). While sufficient necessary macronutrients are significant to stimulate the body, micronutrients work to increase the best resistance function. essential vitamins and minerals—vitamins A, C, E and B complex, and zinc and selenium among them—help maintain the skin and mucosa, improve cellular resistance and maintain antibody production. The micronutrients are required in moderately small quantities in contrast to the macronutrients. At the same time as they are very vital for the good performance and development of the body, micronutrients do not have any power but macronutrients do add an important quantity of energy to the body when absorbs. The body makes simpler nutrients during absorption in order to make use of them. Macronutrients are absorbed to discharge energy but only when there are enough micronutrients to make possible the discharge of these nutrients for breakdown. So, both micronutrients, as well as macronutrients, are significant for the body. Not all the micronutrients and macronutrients existing in our diet are totally ingested by our body. Though the body uses carbohydrates as its major source of power, it too uses up proteins and fats at times of carbohydrate inaccessibility. This is the basis why the universal thumb rule has been outlined which says that 50 percent of the body’s power necessities have to be sourced from carbohydrates, 35 percent from fats and 15 percent from proteins. On the other hand, the information remains that of the energy including macronutrients, fats give the majority energy by mass to the body. This is for the reason that even as one gram of carbohydrates and proteins give just 4 calories, the same amount of fat (one gram of fat) gives 9 grams of calories to the body.

References

Caulfield, L. E., and R. E. Black. 2004. ‘Zinc Deficiency.’ In Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risk Factors, ed. M. Ezzati, A. D. Lopez, A. Rodgers, and C. J. L. Murray, vol. 1, 257-9. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Grantham-McGregor S. M. and C. C. Ani. 1999. The Role of Micronutrients in Psychomotor and Cognitive Development British Medical Bulletin 55: 3 511 – 27.

Hetzel, B. S. 1983. Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) and Their Eradication Lancet 2: 8359 1126 – 29.

Merck Manual 1999. Merck Research Laboratories, Seventeenth Edition.

Rice, A. L., K. P. West Jr., and R. E. Black. 2004. ‘Vitamin A Deficiency.’ In Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risk Factors, ed. M. Ezzati, A. D. Lopez, A. Rodgers, and C. J. L. Murray, vol. 1, 211-56. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Schwarzenegger, A. 1985. Encyclopedia of Modern Body Building, Simon & Schuster.

Shankar A. H. and A. S. Prasad. 1998. Zinc and Immune Function: The Biological Basis of Altered Resistance to Infection American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 68: Suppl. 2 S447 – 63.

Zinc Investigators’ Collaborative Group, Z. A. Bhutta, S. M. Bird, R. E. Black, K. H. Brown, J. M. Gardner , et al. , et al.. 2000. Therapeutic Effects of Oral Zinc in Acute and Persistent Diarrhea in Children in Developing Countries: Pooled Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72: 6 1516 – 22.

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