The role of biofortification in the reduction of micronutrient food insecurity in developing countries

Micronutrient malnutrition is a global public health problem, especially in developing countries. Hunger and starvation which are causative agents of malnutrition are occasioned by poor food supply and low income purchasing power for the expensive animal sources of micronutrients. Access to adequate, safe and nutritious food required for a healthy and active life by all people at all times is limited, resulting in micronutrient food insecurity. The quantity and quality of food available for consumption to people determine their micronutrient security level. Inadequate quantity and quality of food available for consumption are causative agents for macronutrient and micronutrient deficiencies. Bio-fortification is an emerging method to increase the micronutrient values of crops in order to eradicate hidden hunger in developing nations. This paper therefore describes the contribution of biofortification in fighting micronutrient malnutrition in developing countries.Keywords: Micronutrient food insecurity, biofortification, developing nations, Micronutrients.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(37), pp. 5559-556

Corrupt practices negatively influenced food security and live expectancy in developing countries

Abstract Malnutrition is a global public health problem more prevalent in developing countries than in developed countries. Indicators of malnutrition include household food security and life expectancy. Corruption might be one of socio-political problems fuelling malnutrition in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to compare influence of corruption on food security, live expectancy (LE) and population in developed and developing countries. Thirty two least corrupt countries (LCC) and most corrupt countries (MCC) representing developed and developing countries were systematically selected using Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Countries' data on population, food security index (FSI) and LE scores were obtained from Global food security index (GFSI) and Population reference bureau. T-test, Multivariate (Wilks' Lambda), Pearson product moment analysis were performed to determine relationship between CPI, FSI, LE, and population in LCC and MCC at p<.05. Data were presented in tables, means and percentages. Mean CPI, Population, FSI, and LE in LCC and MCC were 71.5% and 24.2%; 34.8 and 41.7million; 75.0% and 37.4%; and 78.4years and 62.4years. There was a significant difference between CPI, FSI and LE in LCC and MCC (p<0.05). CPI had a significant positive relationship with FSI and LE in LCC not MCC. There was also a significant relationship between FSI and LE in MCC. Low CPI influenced high FSI and LE in LCC while Low LE was associated with low FSI in MCC. Policies discouraging corrupt practices and promoting good governance should be embraced to eradicate malnutrition in developing countries

Stability of Vitamin a in Selected Nigerian Bread Made From Commercial Fortified Wheat Flour

Abstract Purpose: Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a public health problem in Nigeria. Stability study was carried out to determine vitamin A contents of selected brands of commercial wheat flour and bread. Methods: Retinyl Palmitate content of three samples of commercial wheat flour and bread randomly selected were analyzed at 0, 5 (bread) and 0, 60 days (flour) respectively at room temperature using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Results: Vitamin A contents of wheat flour and bread were 7.1 to 10.1 i.u. /g (wheat flour) and 0-3.4 i.u./g (bread). Significant difference existed between the mean vitamin A content of wheat flour and label declaration (30 i.u/g) (P< .05). Vitamin A stability was 0-91% (wheat flour) after 60 days and 0-68% (bread) after 5days. Mean stability was better in bread than in flour. Conclusion: Wheat flour and bread contain vitamin A lower than the standard (30 i.u/kg)

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Hunger influenced life expectancy in war-torn Sub-Saharan African countries

Abstract Background Malnutrition is a global public health problem especially in developing countries experiencing war/conflicts. War might be one of the socio-political factors influencing malnutrition in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. This study aims at determining the influence of war on corruption, population (POP), number of population malnourished (NPU), food security and life expectancy (LE) in war-torn SSA countries (WTSSA) by comparing their malnutrition indicators. Methods Fourteen countries in WTSSA were stratified into zones according to war incidences. Countries’ secondary data on population (POP), NPU, Food Security Index (FSI), corruption perceptions index (CPI), Global Hunger Index (GHI) and LE were obtained from global published data. T test, multivariate and Pearson correlation analyses were performed to determine the relationship between CPI, POP, GHI, FSI, NPU, male LE (MLE) and female LE (FLE) in WTSSA at p < .05. Data were presented in tables, means, standard deviation and percentages. Results Mean NPU, CPI, GHI, POP, FSI, MLE and FLE in WTSSA were 5.0 million, 28.3%, 18.2%, 33.8 million, 30.8%, 54.7 years and 57.1 years, respectively. GHI significantly influenced LE in both male and female POP in WTSSA. NPU, CPI, FSI, GHI and FLE were not significantly different according to zones except in MLE. Conclusions Malnutrition indicators were similarly affected in WTSSA. Hunger influenced life expectancy. Policies promoting good governance, equity, peaceful co-existence, respect for human right and adequate food supply will aid malnutrition eradication and prevent war occurrences in Sub-Saharan African countries

Baking and storage stability of vitamin a in retailed bread consumed in Lagos State, Nigeria

Background: Level of vitamin A retention in bread baked with fortified flour at point of consumption might be compromised. Objective: This study determined baking and storage stability (BSS) of vitamin A in retailed bread as purchased and consumed.Methods: A multi-stage stratified systematic random sampling technique was used to select preschoolers in 1,600 households in 5 out of 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Lagos. Fifteen samples of four 100% wheat flour brands (FBs) and 15 oven-fresh bread samples of three commonly consumed brands of bread were randomly selected from 12 purposively selected bakeries across the LGAs. The bread samples were stored for 5 days at room temperature. The retinol content of the flours and the oven-fresh, and 5-day (OF5D) stored bread samples were analysed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. The BSS of the bread samples, FBs and losses were calculated and data analysed using descriptive statistics and T- test at p &lt; 0.05.Results: The mean vitamin A contents of the flours, oven-fresh and OF5D stored bread were 17,403.8 IU/Kg; 7,571.6 IU/Kg and 1,460.6 IU/Kg, respectively. The mean BSS of bread samples were 25.2 vs. 4.9 % and 52.7 vs. 10.9 % with high range of vitamin A losses (39.2-100 %). Statistically significant (p &lt; 0.05) difference existed between vitamin A content of OF5D stored bread and the BSS of the flours. Also, differences existed between the baking and storage vitamin A losses in bread samples.Conclusion: Vitamin A content and the BSS of the bread samples were low with high losses. Monitoring of compliance to recommended vitamin A value in fortified flour is important.Keywords: Vitamin A fortified flour, bread, baking and storage stability, Nigeri

Contribution of bread and biscuits to vitamin A daily requirement of preschool children in Lagos State, Nigeria

Introduction and aim. Vitamin-A-deficiency is a public health problem among preschool children of Nigeria. Study determined the contribution of bread and biscuits to vitamin A-daily-requirement of preschool children in Lagos-State, Nigeria. Material and methods. A community-based-study using a cross-sectional-design with analytical component was carried out from 2013-2015. Multi-stage-sampling-technique was used to select mothers of preschool-children (n=1599) in 5 Local-Government-Areas of Lagos. Respondents’ socio-demographic information and samples consumption-pattern were collected using validated, food-frequency-questionnaire/dietary recall. Retinyl palmitate content of randomly selected commonly-consumed brands of oven-fresh-bread stored for 5-days and biscuits (30- to 60-days) at prevailing outdoor-market-temperatures were analysed using High-Performance-Liquid-Chromatography. Contribution to preschool children’s vitamin A-daily-requirements were determined. Data were analysed using Student’s t-test and ANOVA at p<0.05. Results. Mean age of preschool children was 31.44±5.28 months. Mean intakes of samples were bread (117.6 ±15.9 g/d) and biscuits (59.8±27.9 g/d). Range of contribution to vitamin-A-daily-requirement of preschool-children was 0-178.4 %. Samples contribution to vitamin A-daily-requirement of pre-school-children were oven-fresh bread (68.3 %); 5 days bread (20.7%); 30-days biscuits (25.0%) and 60-days biscuits (6.8%). Overall contribution to vitamin A-daily-requirement were bread (51.4%) and biscuits (22.4%). Statistically significant difference existed between samples contribution and vitamin-A-daily-requirement of preschool children. Conclusion. Bread and biscuits samples contributed significantly to the vitamin-A-daily-requirement of preschool children

A comparative assessment of high blood pressure and its dietary risk factors among teaching and non-teaching staff of University of Lagos, Nigeria

Background: High-blood-pressure is a silent-killer and one of the leading causes of death globally. Objective: This study assessed and compared high-blood-pressure and its dietary-risk-factors among teaching-and non-teaching staff of University of Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: A three-stage sampling-technique was used to select 978 respondents from 9 out of 12 University faculties/Senate-building. Respondents' socio-demographic-information and HBP dietary-risk-factors were collected using an adapted pre-tested version of WHO-STEPwise-questionnaire. Blood-pressure was measured using an automatic blood-pressure monitor, sphygmomanometer. Data was analysed using descriptive-statistics, student-t-test and binary-logistic-regression at p&lt;0.05. Results: Mean ages were teaching (TS) 48.9±8.56years and non-teaching-staff (NTS) 41.8±9.40years. Systolic-BP was 127.1±13.44 mmHg and 123.6±16.15mmHg for TS and NTS respectively; Diastolic-BP 79.6±7.68mmHg and 78.6±9.57mmHg for TS and NTS respectively. HBP was 24.2% and 22.9% for TS and NTS using 2003-JNC7 while 2017-guideline was 64.7% and 51.1% for TS and NTS respectively. Fruits were consumed ≥3days/week by TS (68.1%) and &lt;3days/week by NTS (50.2%). Vegetables were consumed ≥3days/week by TS (60.5%) and NTS (52.4%); Alcohol: 1-2 days/week 12.6% and 19.5% for TS and NTS; Addition of extra salt to meals always 2.6% and 3.3% by TS and NTS. Processed-foods consumed always 9.7% and 15.6% by TS and NTS. Statistically significant association existed between dietary-risk-factors and HBP (p&lt;0.05). HBP-odds among teaching-staff increased with low-consumption of vegetables (&lt;3 days/week) (OR = 1.88; 95% CI: (1.17-3.03); p=0.009) and high-consumption of vegetable-oil (OR = 1.74; 95% CI: (1.08 - 2.80); p=0.022). Conclusion: Hypertensive non-teaching-staff consumed more of dietary-risk-factors of HBP than teaching-staff. Workplace nutrition-education and awareness campaign is very crucial