Why Food Fortification?

Food fortification is a practice which decreases the risk of micronutrient deficiencies by adding micronutrients, vitamins and minerals, to foods. It is considered to be one of the most important strategies to address micronutrient deficiencies on a global scale because food fortification schemes target foods consumed by the majority of world populations, such as wheat, flour and rice.

In the industrialized world, there has been widespread success in reducing population-wide vitamin A, thiamine (vitamin B1), iodine, and niacin (vitamin B3) deficiencies, to mention just a few (World Health Organization 2006, Dwyer et al. 2015). I am certain that you have likely come across milk fortified with Vitamin D, or fortified breakfast cereals. In the developing world, while there is some progress reducing micronutrient deficiencies, much work is still needed, as iron, vitamin A, iodine and zinc deficiencies are still fairly high. In fact, according to the Global Nutrition Report of 2018, almost 2 billion people worldwide suffer from micronutrient deficiencies (Development Initiatives, 2018).

From: World Health Organization 2015. The global prevalence of anaemia in 2011.
Geneva: World Health Organization.

Climate change is likely to increase the disease burden from micronutrient deficiencies. A study showed that increased carbon dioxide levels associated with climate change and changing decreased iron concentrations in wheat, rice, legumes and maize crops (Smith, Golden & Myers 2017). Similary, reseachers in NUI Galway found that beans grown in future drought-conditions induced by climate change will not only contain less iron, but also contain more anti-nutritional compounds such as lead and phytic acid (Hummel et al. 2018). Further large-scale food fortification programmes may be required to address this by adding nutrients back in to staples in order to achieve adequate micronutrient intakes in populations.

Citations:

Dwyer, J.T., Wiemer, K.L., Dary, O., Keen, C.L., King, J.C., Miller, K.B.,  Philbert, M.A.,Tarasuk, V., Taylor, C.L., Gaine, P.C., Jarvis, A.B. and Bailey, R.L. (2015) Fortification and Health: Challenges and Opportunities. Advances in Nutrition, 6(1), pp. 124– 131, https://doi.org/10.3945/an.114.007443.

Development Initiatives, 2018. 2018 Global Nutrition Report: Shining a light to spur action on nutrition. Bristol, UK: Development Initiatives

World Health Organization. (‎2006)‎. Guidelines on food fortification with micronutrients. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43412

Smith, M.R., Golden, C.D., Myers, S.S. (2017) Potential rise in iron deficiency due to future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. GeoHealth, 1(6), pp.248–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GH000018

Hummel, M., Hallahan, B.F., Brychkova, G., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Guwela, V., Chataika, B., Curley, E., Morrison, L., Talsma, E., Beebe, S., Jarvis, A., Chirwa, R., and Spillane, C., (2018) Decline in nutritional quality of common bean under climate change induced drought stress in Africa. Nature Scientific Reports 8:16187. https://doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-33952-4.