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3. THE COSTS OF VITAMIN AND MINERAL DEFICIENCIES

The first 1,000 days – from conception until the age of two – are the most critical for any child. After birth, if exclusive breastfeeding is not practised during the first six months of life or if the solid foods introduced after that period are nutrient-poor, young children are likely to suffer vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Deficiencies lead to more frequent infections, reduce children’s ability to fight and survive disease, and impair mental capacity. These risks remain serious as children grow and develop. They cannot learn as well, and lose school days due to illness.

In adulthood, vitamin and mineral deficiencies negatively affect physical energy and, therefore, productivity. Deficiencies during pregnancy threaten the health and lives of women and impact their unborn children.

Lives Lost

The most unacceptable effects of vitamin and mineral deficiencies are unnecessary child and maternal deaths. For too many, death comes with pregnancy and birth, and for even more it comes after battles with disease. Deficiencies in vitamin A and zinc are particularly dangerous for children who are fighting measles, diarrhoea and malaria. A full 20–24% of deaths from these three diseases are attributable to inadequate vitamin A or zinc to help them fight infections. Vitamin A deficiency annually claims the lives of almost 670,000 children under five and zinc deficiency claims more than 450,000.

Iron-deficiency anaemia during pregnancy is associated with 115,000 women’s deaths each year, which account for one fifth of total maternal deaths. Iron-deficiency anaemia is also estimated to cause almost 600,000 stillbirths or deaths of babies within their first week of life.

Lives Impaired

While the number of children and women who die because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies is great, greater still is the number of people who live with these deficiencies and their consequences. The negative impact on their health and well-being is significant. More often than not, they suffer multiple deficiencies and, therefore, multiple impairments.

Lowered intellect

Reduced intellectual capacity undermines investments in education and perpetuates cycles of poverty. Maternal iodine deficiency is recognized as the greatest cause of preventable mental impairment in the world. In developing countries, 38-million newborns each year are at risk of iodine deficiency.

Intellectual ability is also affected by iron. The effects of iron-deficiency anaemia during infancy and the first years of life on cognitive performance are lasting. It is estimated that 47% of children under the age of five suffers from anaemia.

Disability

Disability can be a devastating burden for individuals and their families. Each year, spina bifida and anencephaly – the two most common types of neural tube defects – affect an estimated 300,000 newborns worldwide – at least half the cases of neural tube defects could be prevented if women consumed sufficient folic acid before conception and during early pregnancy.

It is estimated that 5 million children are affected by night blindness linked to vitamin A deficiency. Every year, 350,000 children become blind because of this deficiency, representing 70% of all new cases of childhood blindness annually. These children face daunting physical, social and ultimately economic challenges.

Loss of Productivity

Every day, national economies suffer significant yet unnecessary losses in productivity due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In countries with the highest numbers of people living with physical and intellectual impairments, the lost potential for economic growth is staggering.

As the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world, iron-deficiency anaemia undermines global productivity by compromising both physical and intellectual capacity. In 2006, approximately 1.62 billion people had anaemia.