But it is not a sustainable solution to vitamin A deficiency.

Opponents maintain that there are better ways to deal with vitamin A deficiency.

Over those 12 years, about eight million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.

The 4.4 million Filipino kids with vitamin A deficiency might not mind so much.

References External links A commoningly used ingredient to lighten hyper pigmentation NIH Office of Dietary Supplements Vitamin A Retinol binding protein Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy Vitamin A Deficiency WHO publications on Vitamin A Deficiency BBC News article on Retinol's use as an anti wrinkle cream

For example, recent data show that even a moderate deficiency of Vitamin A results in higher mortality.

With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet.

Both are great deals. But golden rice would cost just 100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

Most physicians in North America and Europe never see a single case of vitamin A deficiency in their professional lifetimes.

These include Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorder through universalising Iodized Salt Control of Iron Deficiency through Flour Fortification with iron Vitamin A Fortification of edible oil ghee and Vitamin A Supplementation for children from 6 months to five years of age as a regular part of National Immunization Days (NIDS and Sub NIDS).

In developing countries, 200 300 million children of preschool age are at risk of vitamin A deficiency, which can be devastating and even fatal.

Every year, about 500,000 children become blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency, and 70 die within a year of losing their sight.

A study from the British medical journal The Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of five each year.

Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti GM campaigners from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency.

But it is not a sustainable solution to vitamin A deficiency. And, while it is cost effective, recent published estimates indicate that golden rice is much more so.

Because the problem there is just as severe, but it is more sinister, because vitamin D deficiency, from a lack of ultraviolet B radiation, is a major problem.

Measures to reduce the prevalence of iron deficiency, anemia, and vitamin A, iodine, and zinc deficiencies which remain significant in some countries of the region would have a positive impact.

Greenpeace calls golden rice a failure, because it has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.

Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 500,000 children to go blind each year.

Others function as antioxidants (e.g., vitamin E and sometimes vitamin C).

For example, recent data show that even a moderate deficiency of Vitamin A results in higher mortality. In fact, we could avoid the death of at least one million children every year by improving their intake of it.

Opponents maintain that there are better ways to deal with vitamin A deficiency. In its latest statement, Greenpeace says that golden rice is neither needed nor necessary, and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as cost effective.

But, as Ingo Potrykus, the scientist who developed golden rice, has made clear, that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods often by rich, well meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.

IDD Iodine Deficiency Disorder.

Micronutrient Deficiency Control Programmes.

Vitamin D deficiency creeps up on people, and causes all sorts of health problems to their bones, to their gradual decay of their immune systems, or loss of immune function, and probably some problems with their mood and health, their mental health.

An increase in the proportion of animal protein in the 20th century American diet coupled with increased consumption of milk fortified with relatively small quantities of vitamin D coincided with a dramatic decline in the number of rickets cases.

To be sure, handing out vitamin pills or adding vitamin A to staple products can make a difference.

Palmitate is attached to the alcohol form of vitamin A, retinol, to make vitamin A stable in milk.

Vitamin D The human body can synthesize vitamin D when skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Oranges are rich in vitamin C.

The grapefruit diet, also known as the Hollywood Diet and erroneously as the Mayo Clinic Diet, is a short term fad diet that has existed in the United States since at least the 1930s.

Diet and Growth

The Diet Debacle

Micronutrient deficiency is known as hidden hunger.

The programme against iodine deficiency disorders (IDD).

I'm on a diet.

Which diet is better?

The Federal Reserve Diet

America has a savings deficiency, not a glut.

Dark skinned people may be less efficient at making vitamin D because melanin in the skin hinders vitamin D synthesis however, a recent study has found novel evidence that low vitamin D levels among Africans may be due to other reasons.

A Healthy, Climate Friendly Diet

And it s not a diet.

Above all, watch your diet.

Above all, watch your diet.