A community based study of vitamin A and vitamin E status of adolescent girls living in the Shire valley, Southern Malawi

Abstract

Objective: To assess vitamin A and E status and anaemia in non-pregnant Malawian adolescent girls. Design: A cross-sectional study in rural village communities in the Shire Valley, Southern Malawi. Subjects: Adolescent girls, n 118, aged between 10 and 19 y, 112 of whom were unmarried. Methods: Socio-demographic information was collected by questionnaire, heights and weights were measured. Vitamin A was assessed by the Modi®ed Relative Dose Response (MRDR) test, in addition to serum retinol values. Blood samples were collected 4±5 h after administration of 3,4-didehydroretinyl acetate. Retinol and atocopherol levels were measured by HPLC. Serum retinol results for non-pregnant girls were compared with values for 43 adolescent pregnant girls which were available from a previous study. Results: 26.6% of non-pregnant girls had serum retinol values`0.70 mmol/L; 40.2% had an MRDR ratio b 0.060. In 59.3%, serum tocopherol levels were`11.5 mmol/L and the tocopherol/cholesterol ratio was`2.2 in 23.9%. 11.3% had a haemoglobin ! 12 g/dl. Vitamin A levels were signi®cantly related to age, and younger girls were more likely to be de®cient. Signi®cant correlations were found between serum retinol, MRDR values and serum tocopherol. Girls with a low body mass index for age had tocopherol cholesterol ratios`2.2. Low serum retinol values occurred signi®cantly more often in stunted girls (P 0.01). Serum retinol values of adolescent pregnant girls were signi®cantly lower than those of non-pregnant adolescents (P 0.002). Conclusions: Vitamin A and E de®ciency and anaemia were common in adolescent non-pregnant girls, and thought to partly result from increased growth requirements. Girls who become pregnant at an early age are at risk of depletion of their nutritional reserves. Measures to reduce nutritional de®ciencies before the ®rst pregnancy are needed.

Poor micronutrient intake and status is a public health problem among adolescent Mozambican girls

“…There are also factors that may have affected the iron status indicators in the different regions, including the presence of infection (especially malaria) or inflammation [19,20]. The median plasma retinol concentration in our sample was similar to the mean serum concentration found for 10-to 19-year-old Malawian girls [52]. The authors did not, however, report the season of data collection.…”

Plasma retinol concentration according to pubertal maturation in school children and adolescents of Medellín, Colombia

“…Babrin and Babrin (1992) reviewed several studies showing that in well-nourished r10-y-old girls, plasma retinol concentrations and retinol binding protein (RBP) were lower than in female adolescents, despite the fact that good liver stores of retinol had been reported in young female subjects. Furthermore, other researchers found that plasma retinol was related to age in female adolescents: the lower the age, the greater the chance of them having concentrations under 0.70 mmol/l, and the menarche reduced the possibility of lower values (Frazio-Tirrozzo et al, 1998). These findings contribute to confirm our results since plasma retinol deficiency was 75% in individuals under 12 y of age.…”

“…However, when a relative dose-response test was applied, the percentage of women with retinol deficiency was 76%. In another study, researchers found that 26.6% female adolescents from Malawi had o0.70 mmol/l concentrations of retinol and 40% of them had a relative dose-response test 40.06 (Frazio-Tirrozzo et al, 1998). Based on this lack of correlation between the two different tests used to measure plasma retinol, we proposed that the serum retinol concentrations might not be the best indicator of the nutritional status of vitamin A.…”

Higher pre-infection vitamin E levels are associated with higher mortality in HIV-1-infected Kenyan women: a prospective study

“…Vitamin E status is influenced by a number of factors (e.g., dietary fat intake, body mass index, smoking, seasonal variation in food availability), and the vitamin E levels found in this study were similar to those reported previously in studies of African females [20,21]. This study was not designed to test the hypothesis that higher vitamin E intake or vitamin E supplementation would influence HIV-1 disease progression.…”