In the May 13th edition of The New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof paints a very favorable portrait of vitamin A supplements.
In the May 13th edition of The New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof paints a very favorable portrait of vitamin A supplements. After visiting a town in northern Guinea, Kristof had this to say about supplementation:
"Americans pretty much take vitamin A for granted, but many of the world’s poorest people lack it," he writes. "And as a result, it is estimated that more than half-a-million children die or go blind each year. There’s a simple fix: vitamin A capsules that cost about 2 cents each.
"[It has been] have found that vitamin A supplements reduce not only blindness, but also death from diarrhea and other diseases. A review by Unicef and Helen Keller International reports that in areas such as West Africa where many children lack the vitamin, child mortality drops by approximately 23% after vitamin A capsules are distributed to children.
"According to the United Nations, half of the children in many African countries are deficient in vitamin A (which comes from liver, mangos, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and dark, green leafy vegetables), and a disease like measles will quickly deplete their supply further and trigger blindness. The upshot is that vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of child blindness in the world today.
“Addressing vitamin A deficiency may be the most cost-effective intervention you can implement,” he quotes a member of Helen Keller International as saying.
To read the full story, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/opinion/14kristof.html
The Nutritional Outlook Podcast Episode 33: Keeping up with contract manufacturing
July 26th 2024Nutritional Outlook talks to Lauren Samot, commercial innovation leader, and Blayney McEneaney, sales executive at Vitaquest International, about trends within the contract manufacturing space, and the ways in which contract manufacturers like Vitaquest keep up with the market and differentiate themselves from the competition.