Over 2.3 billion people worldwide do not achieve their physical and intellectual potential because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Food fortification is the most cost effective health intervention available.
The cost per person per year is as low as $0.26 per person per year, varying based on the food and specific vitamins added.
Many diets, especially those of rural communities, contain insufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals due to lack of variation and/or consumption of predominantly processed foods.
Food fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals (e.g. iron, folic acid, iodine, vitamin A, and zinc) to staple foods to improve their nutritional content and address a nutritional gap in a population.
A safe and effective means of improving public health that has been used around the world since the 1920s, it provides a nutritional benefit without requiring consumers to change eating habits or purchase patterns. In the developing world, commonly fortified foods include staple products such as salt, maize flour, wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, and rice.
What Are Micronutrients?
Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals required in small amounts that are essential to our health, development, and growth.
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Where Do Micronutrients Come From?
Micronutrients are found naturally in a variety of plant- and animal-based foods. Although they can now be synthesized in the laboratory, a varied diet typically provides all of the vitamins and minerals necessary for human health. In many settings, however, such foods are not available and provide a major threat to the health and development of populations around the globe. These are also the places where micronutrient deficiencies cause the greatest harm.
Why Are They Important?
Proper intake of vitamins and minerals can mean the difference between a healthy, productive life, and a life fraught with illness. Micronutrient deficiencies, which affect over two billion people around the globe today, are the leading cause of intellectual disability in children (due to iodine deficiency), preventable blindness (due to vitamin A deficiency), maternal death during childbirth (due to iron deficiency), and severe and often fatal birth defects known as neural tube defects (due to folic acid deficiency). Diminished mental capacity and increased absenteeism (due to iodine and iron deficiency), lead to lower academic achievement, with lifelong consequences.
A lack of these important vitamins and minerals also has a profound impact on the body’s immune system. A person’s chances of dying from measles or diarrhea are between 30 – 50%. With adequate micronutrient intake, this percentage can be lowered significantly due to the effects vitamins and minerals have on bolstering the immune system. Immune systems weakened by a lack of micronutrients put children at increased risk, making them more likely to miss school. Adults are more likely to miss work either due to their own illness, or to care for sick children. Both add to the load of already overburdened healthcare systems.
Even those who are not sick suffer diminished ability to concentrate and reduced physical and mental productivity, preventing them from reaching their full potential and increasing the likelihood of further disease and disability. What emerges is a grim cycle compounded by insufficient healthcare and education, poor sanitation, and disease.
A mother who is lacking key nutrients not only increases her chances of dying during childbirth, but also risks not being able to provide her child with the proper nutrients needed to begin life.
Beyond the enormous health implications, micronutrient malnutrition has an economic impact. The Micronutrient Initiative and the World Bank estimate that the most affected countries may lose as much as 2 – 3 % of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per year.