Prevention of vitamin A deficiency by fortification of sugar. A field study.

The small amount of vitamin A in the diet of people living in some regions of Chile can be increased by adding this vitamin to sugar. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of a sugar fortification program, vitamin A fortified sugar was distributed to four indian villages in the mountainous region of Africa, whose inhabitants showed a severe vitamin A deficiency. The results of this study demonstrate that sugar fortification program is able to correct vitamin A deficiency by elevating the vitamin intake and consequently improve the circulating retinol, without substantially increasing the cost or modigying the organoleptic characteristics of sugar.