Vitamin A

UNICEF sees alarming trend in Africa child nutrition

With diamond riches and a relatively small population Botswana is better positioned than most African countries to intervene. But UNICEF said basic steps such as encouraging early and exclusive breast-feeding and providing Vitamin A supplements could have dramatic benefits.

Poor nations fail their underfed children: UNICEF

Among steps it recommended were promoting breast-feeding as the exclusive source of nutrition for the first six months of life, improving the diet of pregnant women to push up birth weights and ensuring adequate supplies of iodized salt, iron, Vitamin A and other vital micronutrients in children's diets.

Vitamin D May Cut Breast Cancer Risk

Supplements contain the nutrient, but most contain an old form, D-2, that is less potent than the harder-to-find D-3. Multivitamins typically contain little D-2 and include vitamin A, which offsets many of D's benefits.

Vitamin A-Like Compound Fights Lung Cancer

TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A compound closely related to vitamin A shows promise in slowing lung cancer, according to studies in mice.

Eight million Mozambican children vaccinated against polio, measles

"During this campaign, 8,189,159 children out of a total of 8,476,450 were vaccinated throughout the country against measles and polio and received booster shots of vitamin A," he said.

Liver Transplants May Cure Rare Disease

That a transplant might help was a surprise, discovered when an 8-year-old with MSUD received one after a vitamin A overdose destroyed her liver. Her amino acid levels normalized within hours of the 1997 transplant, and she's been fine since.

Help world's children and fight bird flu: experts

Their formula is based on a few actions: Vaccinating every child against diseases such as measles and pneumonia, treating every child with diarrhea with rehydration salts, providing inexpensive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs and insecticide-treated mosquito nets, ensuring every child is breast-fed from birth and giving malnourished children low-cost vitamin A supplements.

Help world's children and fight bird flu -experts

Their formula is based on a few actions: Vaccinating every child against diseases such as measles and pneumonia, treating every child with diarrhea with rehydration salts, providing inexpensive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs and insecticide-treated mosquito nets, ensuring every child is breast-fed from birth and giving malnourished children low-cost vitamin A supplements.

Malnutrition hits 30 percent of poorest Chinese children

However, the survey also found that 25 percent of children up to two years old in cities and 33 percent in rural areas suffer from anaemia, while 15 percent suffer Vitamin A deficiency.

Asian Shrub Could Be a Cancer-Fighter

In mice, TPA alone and in combination with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), a vitamin A derivative, had already been shown to be effective against leukemia, the researchers noted.

Niger widening focus of anti-hunger effort

After Hadiza is tended to, the ACF staff turn to year-old Ali Hussein, whose numbers are slightly more reassuring, 5.8 kilos for 68 centimeters. They hand his mother Saliya a thin sack of medication, including vitamin A and folic acid, and five kilos (11 pounds) of enriched flour with which to feed her son for two weeks.

Soda ups risk of obesity, but isn't sole culprit

In one 2003 study, researchers found that, among children ages 7 to 13, those who drank the most soda drank less milk, and got less protein, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and vitamin A from their diets.

Scientists Say Sunshine May Prevent Cancer

Scientists are excited about a vitamin again. But unlike fads that sizzled and fizzled, the evidence this time is strong and keeps growing. If it bears out, it will challenge one of medicine's most fundamental beliefs: that people need to coat themselves with sunscreen whenever they're in the sun. Doing that may actually contribute to far more cancer deaths than it prevents, some researchers think.

Myamar to study women's, children's health

National Nutrition Centre assistant director Myint Myint Zin said the study aims to uncover the extent of vitamin A, iodine and iron deficiencies among children under five and women between 15 and 49.

Fruit, Veggies Tied to Lower Pancreatic Cancer Risk

Lycopene, obtained mainly through tomatoes and tomato products, belongs to a family of plant compounds called carotenoids, some of which are converted in the body to the antioxidant vitamin A.

New genetically modified rice could reduce childhood blindness: report

LONDON (AFP) - Scientists in Britain have developed a strain of genetically modified rice which they say could reduce vitamin A deficiency and childhood blindness in developing countries, the BBC said.

Healthy Diet May Prevent Age-Related Disability

Exactly why a healthy diet was more protective in African American women than in white women is unclear. The finding, Houston and her colleagues note, could reflect differences in the types of produce or dairy products that African American and white women eat. For example, African Americans have been shown eat more dark green vegetables and get more vitamin A and C than white Americans do.

Kenya to launch anti-polio drive after outbreak in Sudan

All children under the age of five, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated against polio in the past, will receive the innoculation as well as supplements of Vitamin A to boost their immunity.

Gene May Spur Childhood Brain Cancer

The scientists also found that trans-retinoic acid (ATRA), a powerful derivative of vitamin A, suppressed growth and induced death in tumor cells carrying switched-on OTX2. Treatment with ATRA had an effect on more than half of medulloblastomas grown in the laboratory.