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Development of non‐invasive assessments on vitamin A status by using skin levels of carotenoids as biomarker ő India study (1022.9)
Author(s) -
Xiong Maxwell,
Winterholler Erik,
Wipfel Mia,
Patel Dinesh
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.1022.9
Subject(s) - carotenoid , medicine , vitamin a deficiency , vitamin , developing country , pediatrics , environmental health , retinol , biology , food science , ecology
BACKGROUND: Some 127 million preschool children are Vitamin A Deficient (VAD), which is about one‐quarter of all preschool children in high‐risk regions of the developing world. Globally, approximately 4.4 million preschool children have visible eye damage due to VAD. Annually, about 500,000 preschool children go blind from VAD, and about two‐thirds die within months of going blind. Close to 20 million pregnant women in developing countries are also VAD, of which about one‐third are clinically night‐blind. Nearly one‐half of these cases occur in India. Invasive methods are common way for the diagnosis of VAD, but are costly and inconvenient to developing countries. OBJECTIVE: This is a continuation study from our US study. Skin levels of carotenoids directly depend on the diets and life style; therefore the data from different countries are important for development of non‐invasive methods for vitamin A, specially Indian subjects who are vegetarians. METHODS: More than 200 village preschool children, pregnant women, school students and adult men from Gujarat, India were enrolled by a local hospital; all subjects received the non‐invasive measurements on their skin levels of carotenoids by using a reflectance scanner. The blood samples were also collected for the analysis of vitamin A content. RESULTS: The average skin levels of carotenoids from young children and pregnant women were within normal ranges. However, the results from high school students caught our attentions because the reflectance scores were very low and there are some concerns on the potential risks of VAD for this group. The assay from plasma samples was consistent with the non‐invasive measurements. CONCLUSION: The noninvasive reflectance spectroscopy method is feasible to measure the vitamin A concentration in the blood, but more data from other regions and countries are needed to further confirm the correlations.