More than half of the global population consumes inadequate levels of several micronutrients essential to health, including calcium, iron, and vitamins C and E, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).
It is the first study to provide global estimates of inadequate consumption of 15 micronutrients critical to human health. The study will be published in The Lancet Global Health on August 29. Micronutrient deficiencies are one of the most common forms of malnutrition globally, and each deficiency carries its own health consequences, from adverse pregnancy outcomes, to blindness, to increased susceptibility to infectious diseases.
Previous research has estimated the amounts of micronutrients available to and consumed by people; this study evaluates whether these intakes meet requirements recommended for human health and looks at the inadequacies specifically facing males and females across their lifespans. Our study is a big step forward. Not only because it is the first to estimate inadequate micronutrient intakes for 34 age-sex groups in nearly every country, but also because it makes these methods and results easily accessible to researchers and practitioners.
" Chris Free, co-lead author, research professor at UCSB The researchers used data from the Global Dietary Database, the World Bank, and dietary recall surveys in 31 countries to compare nutrition.