Alleviation of vitamin A deficiency with palm fruit and its products.

The decreased dietary diversity wrought from the adoption of the settled, agrarian system to replace the hunter-gather and pastoralist lifestyles assured a stable supply of protein and calories from grains and tubers while creating a vulnerability for humans to suffer micronutrient deficiencies. The vitamin A from animal tissue is more bioavailable to humans than the provitamin A in the matrix of green plants. Provitamin A carotenes achieve a dietary vitamin A efficacy nearly equivalent to that of the preformed vitamin only in the context of an oily matrix. The homeostatic regulation of carotene bioconversion by the intestine, moreover, prevents any excess toxic accumulation of vitamin A from provitamin A sources. The efficacy and safety of the palm fruit (genus Elaeis) as a source of vitamin A, in addition to its cultural recognition as a food, are more consistent with the gentler concept of "alleviation" of the public health problem of hypovitaminosis A, then the more aggressive, medical model of "eradication" with its greater potential for risk and collateral damage. The palm fruit and its derivatives achieve new opportunities for creative contribution and sustained use in formats of supplementation (prophylactic in children and women, for lactation), food-to-food fortification (in bakery goods and snacks, as condiments), and even in food diversification strategies. Experience in India, South Africa, and Guatemala begins to define and delineate the opportunities and limitations for the palm fruit to contribute to the alleviation of endemic vitamin A deficiency.