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Abstract
Vitamin A (VA) is an essential nutrient that is required for vision, cellular differentiation, growth and development, immune function, and reproduction. Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) affects over 190 million children under the age of 5 years old globally, and has historically been treated with preformed VA supplementation and fortification. Currently, there is no regimen for VA supplementation regarding birth weight. Our studies found that healthy birth weight piglets are able to store more VA in their livers than low birth weight piglets.
Over the past 20 years, biofortification of staple foods with provitamin A carotenoids has emerged as an advantageous approach to alleviate VAD. Provitamin A carotenoid digestion is tightly regulated to prevent VA toxicity from plant sources. Provitamin A carotenoids must be cleaved to VA before intestinal absorption, which is a major regulatory step that is affected by VA status. Biofortification of maize with provitamin A carotenoids improves VA status in humans and rodent models. We found that biofortified high provitamin A orange maize fed to VA-depleted sows during gestation and lactation resulted in higher sow milk VA concentration than those that received a preformed VA supplement during gestation. These sows also produced offspring with higher liver VA concentration and stores throughout the first four weeks of life. Provitamin A maize also has the potential to influence other foods because maize is traditionally a staple in livestock animal feeds, such as chickens. Chickens that consumed provitamin A maize high in β-cryptoxanthin had higher egg yolk β-cryptoxanthin concentrations and darker yolk color than chickens that were fed a diet with a similar concentration of β-cryptoxanthin from tangerine peel. Egg yolks collected from the treatment phase of this study were then fed to VA-depleted Mongolian gerbils. Similarly, gerbils fed the orange biofortified maize eggs had significantly higher VA status than gerbils fed eggs from chickens raised on white maize. These studies provide evidence for the impact of introducing provitamin A biofortified foods into communities who will adopt them.
