Studies of vitamin A deficiency in children

Abstract

The clinical features of 319 children with vitamin A deficiency observed in Coonoor and forty-nine children studied in Hyderabad have been discussed in detail. Estimations of the contents of vitamin A and carotene in the serum and the in vitro destruction of vitamin A by lysed red blood cells were carried out. There was a lack of association between the incidence of night blindness and other ocular signs of vitamin A deficiency. Although signs of vitamin A deficiency were always associated with a low dietary intake of carotene and vitamin A, the reverse did not always occur. The proportion of patients with vitamin A deficiency who had keratomalacia was much greater in Hyderabad than in Coonoor. Levels of vitamin A and carotene in the serum were low in all children with vitamin A deficiency. Levels of vitamin A in the serum of subjects with kwashiorkor but without clinical signs of vitamin A deficiency were also found to be significantly lower than the levels in apparently normal children. Treatment with a high protein diet without vitamin A supplementation brought about a significant increase in the levels of vitamin A in the serum in the latter. The in vitro destruction of vitamin A by lysed red blood cells of children suffering from vitamin A deficiency appeared to be higher than that of the normal controls Treatment with vitamin A lowered this abnormal in vitro destruction.