Impact of Provitamin A Biofortified Maize Consumption on Carotenoid Status of Zambian Children

A cluster-randomized trial to test the impact of orange maize consumption on serum retinol concentration in children

Abstract

Provitamin A carotenoid biofortified “orange” maize has been developed as a vitamin A deficiency control strategy using selective breeding for the β-carotene hydroxylase-1 gene, which increases β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, and zeaxanthin in the endosperm.

The authors conducted a cluster-randomized trial to test the impact of orange maize consumption (a predominantly β-carotene-rich variety) on serum retinol concentration in rural Zambian children (4–8 years). In the present analysis, they tested the intervention’s impact on circulating carotenoids.

This work is an output of the HarvestPlus Programme. The Department for International Development is one of the main donors for HarvestPlus.

Citation

Craft, Neal E., Amanda Palmer, Kerry Schultze, Justin Chileshe, Maxwell Barffour, Ward Siamusantu, Rolf Klemm, and Keith West. 2017. Impact of provitamin A biofortified maize consumption on carotenoid status of Zambian children. The FASEB Journal 31 (1): Supplement 786.17.

Impact of Provitamin A Biofortified Maize Consumption on Carotenoid Status of Zambian Children

Published 1 April 2017