Vitamin and mineral deficiencies harm one-third of the world's population, says new report.

News Vitamin and mineral deficiencies harm one-third of the world's population, says new report Micronutrient deficiencies are damaging the health of one-third of the world's population and hampering the economic development of nearly every country in the Southern Hemisphere says a new report released on 21 January at the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by UNICEF and the Micronutrient Initiative, a Canadian-based non-profit organization. Vitamin and mineral deficiency: a global damage assessment (available at http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ davos_micronutrient.pdf) concludes that current efforts to remedy micro-nutrient deficiencies in the world's poorer nations are inadequate and will remain so without new and more aggressive policies. According to the report, micronutrient deficiencies have left 2 billion people living below their physical and mental potential and are having devastating consequences on children. Worst affected countries include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia and most West and Central African nations. " It's no longer acceptable to simply identify symptoms of micronutrient deficiency in individuals and then treat them, " said UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy. " We have to protect entire populations against the devastating consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiency, especially children. " The report summarizes results from nutritional status studies undertaken in 80 countries and identifies four target nutrients crucial to health and development both in utero and in childhood: iron, vitamin A, iodine and folate. Iron deficiency impairs mental development in young children and results in a lowering of national intelligence quotients. It also undermines adult productivity, with estimated losses of as much as 2% of gross national product while anaemia resulting from severe iron deficiency causes deaths during childbirth of an estimated 50 000 women each year. Lack of vitamin A has left up to 40% of children less than 5 years old in the developing world with compromised A food market in Alem Kitmama, northeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country is one of the worst affected by vitamin and mineral deficiencies. immune systems, leading to the early deaths of one million young children every year. Iodine deficiencies cause up to 20 million babies to be born with mental defects every year whilst folate deficiency results in about 200 000 severe birth defects annually such as spina bifida, encephalocoele and anencephaly. " There's no excuse for not reaching every human being with these simple but life-saving micronutrients, " Bellamy said. " We know what needs doing, we just have to do it. …