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Vitamin A fortification of vegetable oil in Bangladesh
Author(s) -
Raghavan Ramkripa,
Aaron Grant J,
Neufeld Lynnette M,
Rahman Sabuktagin,
Nahar Baitun,
Knowles Jacky
Publication year - 2016
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.30.1_supplement.674.34
Subject(s) - fortification , environmental health , geography , socioeconomics , vitamin , toxicology , consumption (sociology) , agricultural science , agricultural economics , medicine , environmental science , social science , archaeology , sociology , economics , biology
Objective Mandatory fortification of vegetable oil (soybean and palm oil) with vitamin A was decreed in Bangladesh in 2013, but there is a dearth of data on the availability and consumption of vitamin A fortifiable and fortified oil at retailer and household (HH) level. Methods Data on household use and purchase of edible oil was collected as part of a 2015 national iodized salt coverage survey. Stratification was done by urban and slum (combined), rural low performing (program performance for salt iodization) and rural other. The survey included collection of information about household vulnerability to poverty (deprivation) to assess equity of access to fortified/fortifiable products. Individual oil consumption was estimated based on reported frequency and quantity of oil purchased and expected intra‐HH distribution according to FAO recommended adult male consumption (AME) method. Commercially produced soy and palm oil samples were also collected from local retail outlets for analysis of vitamin A content. The final national sample included 1512 HH and 756 retailer shops from 126 primary sampling units nationwide. Results Purchase of commercially produced fortifiable vegetable oil was high (86.5% HHs) but varied significantly by strata, being highest in urban areas (93.9%) and lowest in rural low performing areas (80.4%). More deprived HHs were less likely to purchase fortifiable vegetable oil (81.4%) when compared to non‐deprived HHs (89.7%) ‐ p value ‐ <0.001 for all above differences. Estimated individual fortifiable oil consumption was highest among Women of Reproductive Age (WRA) in urban areas (27.20 g/day), and lowest in rural‐low performing areas (18.94 g/day). A similar pattern of statistically significant differences in fortifiable oil consumption between strata was observed for all age groups except for 12–23 month olds in rural low performing vs. rural‐other. Preliminary analysis suggests that if commercially produced oil were fortified at recommended level of 19ppm (suggested range 15–30 ppm), it would meet 26.5% and 51.2% vitamin A RNI for children (12–59 months old) and WRA respectively. Conclusion This survey indicates wide availability (>80%) of commercially produced (fortifiable) oils among all population groups, together with widespread consumption of oil for children 12–59 months old (8.28 g/day vs. 9.97 g/day in more and less deprived HH, respectively) and WRA (20.11 g/day vs. 25.37 g/day in more and less deprived HH, respectively). These data show that soybean and palm oils are appropriate vehicles for vitamin A fortification, and even deprived households can be reached using this vehicle. Future work will include an assessment of current actual additional vitamin A intake estimates, based on the results of the oil sample retinol analysis.