Vitamin A Deficiency

In much of the developing world, vitamin A deficiency is a serious public health problem. It was formerly known to blind half a million children each year but studies have established that it causes other diseases and kills even more young children than it blinds. This book gives account of vitamin A deficiency and its impact on world health.

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Over the past decade and a half, many studies have implicated vitamin A status as an important determinant of health. The World Bank now estimates that vitamin A intervention programs may be one of the most cost-effective health strategies in all of medicine. This new book, by investigators who have led these developments, is the first to synthesize the many important studies to date and to identify and quantify the biological, clinical and public health impact of vitamin A deficinecy on childhood growth, mortality and morbidity, including anaemia and blindness.

This comprehensive volume on a critically important and widespread nutritional deficiency will serve as a unique resource for nutritionists, physicians, public health workers and policy makers. It will be especially relevant to clinicians and scientists in international health.