title: Proposed vitamin a fortification levels.
abstract: Fortified complementary foods could be effective in preventing and controlling vitamin A and other common nutritional deficiencies in young children. Milk from well-nourished women is an excellent source of vitamin A. However, in Latin America many children are weaned prematurely and must receive the entire requirement of vitamin A from food. This paper proposes vitamin A fortification levels for foods targeted for children aged 6-23 mo to meet the existing intake gap among both breast-fed and weaned infants and young children. Estimates assume a nonsignificant contribution of common complementary foods and average levels of human milk intake by breast-fed infants and children. The estimated vitamin A gap for breast-fed infants aged 6-11 mo amounts to 63-92 microg RE [16-23% of recommended daily intake (RDI)] and for breast-fed children reaches 125 microg RE (31% of RDI). Weaned infants and children would have to fully meet the RDI (400 microg RE) from complementary foods. A fortified complementary food with 500 mg RE/100 g of dry product provided daily in a single ration of 40 g would meet 50% of the gap for weaned infants aged 6-11 mo and would raise the total intake above RDI for breast-fed infants aged 6-8 mo (125%) and 9-11 mo (127%). The same fortified food given in a daily ration of 60 mg would meet most of the gap (75%) for weaned children aged 12-23 mo and would increase total intake of breast-fed children aged 12-23 mo well above the RDI (144%), with no risk of exceeding established upper tolerable intake levels.
authors.affiliation: International Science and Technology Institute, Inc, Arlington, VA 22209, USA. jmora@istinc.com
authors.forename: Jose O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Mora
mesh_terms: D001942:Breast Feeding; D004032:Diet; D005527:Food, Fortified; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D014801:Vitamin A / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D014886:Weaning
chemical_list: D014801:Vitamin A