Summary
Background
Inadequate micronutrient intakes and related deficiencies are a major challenge to global public health. Analyses over the past 10 years have assessed global micronutrient deficiencies and inadequate nutrient supplies, but there have been no global estimates of inadequate micronutrient intakes. We aimed to estimate the global prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intakes for 15 essential micronutrients and to identify dietary nutrient gaps in specific demographic groups and countries.
Methods
In this modelling analysis, we adopted a novel approach to estimating micronutrient intake, which accounts for the shape of a population’s nutrient intake distribution and is based on dietary intake data from 31 countries. Using a globally harmonised set of age-specific and sex-specific nutrient requirements, we then applied these distributions to publicly available data from the Global Dietary Database on modelled median intakes of 15 micronutrients for 34 age–sex groups from 185 countries, to estimate the prevalence of inadequate nutrient intakes for 99·3% of the global population.
Findings
On the basis of estimates of nutrient intake from food (excluding fortification and supplementation), more than 5 billion people do not consume enough iodine (68% of the global population), vitamin E (67%), and calcium (66%). More than 4 billion people do not consume enough iron (65%), riboflavin (55%), folate (54%), and vitamin C (53%). Within the same country and age groups, estimated inadequate intakes were higher for women than for men for iodine, vitamin B12, iron, and selenium and higher for men than for women for magnesium, vitamin B6, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin A, thiamin, and niacin.
A year ago I was reading a bunch of papers on biofortification via plant breeding and there was some really interesting info about just how many people can be shifted from inadequate to adequate intake of some nutrients just by breeding in things like higher levels of lysine, zinc, iron, beta carotene, etc… into staple crops. In places like india and africa just replacing a handful of crops with improved varieties can shift hundreds of millions of people out of deficiency ranges that cause permanent cognitive and physical stunting/disability.
Overtime as trace mineral depletion continues in global cropland and as CO2 levels reduce nutrient density of crops purposeful breeding programs and soil repletion will be necessary to have decent health of previous generations