Deficiency of vitamin a meets rather often in the developing countries. Every year about 250 000 malnourished children go blind and this is a very serious vitamin a deficiency problem. One of the vitamin a deficiency problems can be zinc deficiency in the organism. In the United States most vitamin a deficiency signs are reflected in strict diet restrictions.
Deficiency of vitamin A has some other signs. One of the first signs is night blindness. In ancient times people didn't have chemical treatment, but even at that time there were very clever people. In Ancient Egypt people treated night blindness by eating liver. Liver as other kinds of animal foods, like milk and eggs, helps you to avoid deficiency of vitamin A.
If your or your child's body has signs of vitamin A deficiency this might also mean that your organism might not be able to fight viruses and infections. You get weaker. This may turn into a serious problem. For many children with the lack of vitamin A such infection disease as measles can be unfortunately fatal. Other problems connected with deficiency of vitamin A are pneumonia, diarrhea and respiratory infections, slow or maybe even wrong bone development.
Who has the biggest risk of getting vitamin A deficiency? Of course, children, especially if the child is weak himself. Usually these are children from the lowest layers of society, who have weak immune system and kids with liver or pancreas diseases.
Vitamin A deficiency may appear when it is lost through an overall wrong intake or through chronic diarrhea. Earlier in this article we have mentioned Zinc deficiency as one of the signs of vitamin A deficiency. The lack of iron in the organism can also cause this kind of problem.
But the problem of deficiency of vitamin A should bother not only caring parents. For adults taking too much alcohol this problem might be also very serious. For those who are addicted to alcohol it is necessary to include vitamin A in diet, but everything should be done according to doctor's prescription, otherwise there might appear big and serious problems with the liver.
Deficiency of vitamin A is a rare problem for such countries as Canada, Germany and other developed ones. But developing countries and the third world countries suffer from this sickness greatly.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) are working on this problem, but still the number of children having measles is bigger than one percentage. It is a rather high parameter of fatal outcomes among kids.
For vegetarians who do not have animal foods in their meals, vitamin A deficiency shouldn't be neglected. In order to fulfill the needed amount of vitamin A, darkly colored fruits and vegetables should be included in their diets.
As we can see, our organisms need both animal and plant foods for healthy and long living. Without any of it our bodies feel different kinds of deficiencies. Mother Nature gives us everything that we need. But people still consider themselves the masters of nature and not a part of it.