Vitamin Angels: We could reach 100 million kids tomorrow if we had the funding
Nice introduction at Nutraingredients, May 2013
Vitamin Angels home page
Biggest Contributors to Vitamin Angels
- Cash $500,000+ Sams Club, Flintstone Vitamins, VitaminWater
- Cash $100,000+ Pharmachem labs, Univera, Vitamin World, Barlean’s
- Cash $50,000+ Nutragenetics, Purity Products, Vitamin Shoppe, TwinLab
- Pills $5,000,000+ ProCaps Labs
- Pills $1,000,000+ NBTY
- Pills $250,000+ Capsugel
Vitamin Angels have 2 programs - both operated thru NGOs in the country
- Operation 20/20 which gives vitamin A twice a year
- Thrive to five which gives multivitamins on a daily basis to only:
Infants 6 months – 5 years (No vitamins for age 0-6 months)
Pregnant or lactating mothers
The Vitamin Angels base their supplements on old recommendations from WHO/UNICEF published in 2006.
PDF is attached at the bottom of this page Which has the following graphic
WHO probably goes for the lowest common denominator, example: UK is still just recommending 200 IU of vitamin D
Problems with low vitamin D
- Only 200 IU for Pregnant and lactating Women
- Only 200 IU for children age 6 months to 5 years
Which is not enough to even stop rickets (Turkey reduced rickets by 60X with 400 IU) - No vitamins for age 0-6 months
Suspect because infants cannot eat solids, such as pills, until 6 months
Suspect that the liquid form of vitamin D became available after WHO recommendation
Infants 0-6 months REQUIRE vitamin D and extremely rarely get it thru breast milk now
WHO is still using the old (1997) recommendations of the Institute of Medicine
Rather than the updated 2010 recommendations
where 0-1 year Adequate Intake is 400 IU of Vitamin D
Vitamin D intervention Opportunity
WHO does not mention any supplementation for infants until they can take sold foods – at age 6 months.
WHO recommends a bare minimum of vitamin D, 200 IU starting at age 6 months
The incidence of rickets in several countries around the world ranges from 10% to 70% of all infants
The cost of liquid vitamin D at retail prices is $15 for 90 days of 400 IU drops
So retail price of 400 IU daily for first 6 months of life is $30
Assume that the wholesale price would be $15
Assume that need to treat 5 infants to stop tickets in countries with lots of rickets (20%)
Thus the wholesale cost of vitamin D would be 5 X $15 = $75 to prevent 1 child from getting rickets
Example:
- After Turkey GAVE 400 IU of vitamin D to all infants, rickets fell from a rate of 6% to 0.1%, a 60X reduction
Note: This was without any additional Calcium or nutrition. - Mongolia: 60,000 births/year X $15 = $900,000/year to stop rickets in Mongolia
Notes
- Vitamin D is the highest cause of rickets, but not the only – lack of Calcium /Phosphrosis
- Expect that after stopping vitamin D at age 6 months that the body’s levels will remain high for a few more months.
- Wonder the % of rickets which can be eliminated with starting 200 IU of vitamin D at age 6 months?
- In addition to rickets 75 percent of unexplained sudden infant deaths had inadequate level of vitamin D – April 2013
- another study found that 87% of the SIDS babies <1 year showed evidence of rickets
- Need to check assumption: That giving 400 IU of vitamin D daily for 6 months will be enough to stop rickets at later age.
Opportunity steps
- Get wealthy people from Mongolia, etc to donate funds to give vitamin D to those children.
- Convience Vitamin Angels to provide vitamin D at ages 0-6 months (increases their impact)
- Convience Vitamin Angels to direct funds donated for liquid vitamin D to specific countries or high risk infants
Notes
- Most of the countries with lots of rickets have poor health.in other ways as well
They have adapted to overall poor health, so may not easily change - Normalizing vitamin D so as to virtually eliminate rickets will probably also decrease other vitamin D deficiency diseases, such as TB and pneunomia
- Need to give vitamin D to ALL of the infants, not just those who are members of poor families
Note the experience of Turkey, which needed to give to ALL infants to achieve a national 60X decrease in rickets
Slides about Rickets from Vitamin D Workshop in San Francisco, June 2013
From: The Prevention of Vitamin D Deficiency at the Community Level - Zulf Mughai, Manchester, UK
From slide: Mongolia 70%, Tibet 66%, Ethiopia 42%, Yemen 27%, Turkey 10% (reduced to 0.1% after providing 400 IU to all infants), Nigeria 9%
Searched for wealthy people in various countries with high rate of rickets
(wealthiest OR richest OR Rich) (mongolia OR tibet OR ethiopia OR Yemen OR Nigeria )
Found http://www.celebritynetworth.com/
The Black Billionaires Forbes, March 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_billionaires
Mongolia
Rickets PDF is attached at the bottom of this page
http://mayaguais.blogspot.com/2013/05/mongolias-10-richest-men.html
Mongolia's 10 richest men May 2013
Two Brothers Conquer Mongolia's Free-Market Wild West
l Mongolia $1.25/Day Labor Amid $4K Purses Stirs Discontent
Yemen
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/35441
Top 20 Richest Ethiopians – 2011
Ethiopia 82 million population, 2.6 million births per year
Very poor health – so they are used to it
Among the top TB rates in the world – also might be helped with vitamin D
childhood pneumonia – also might be helped with vitamin D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Hussein_Al_Amoudi
Forbes has estimated his net worth at $12.3 billion, making him the 63rd richest person in the world.
This listing also ranks him as the richest person in Ethiopia and the second richest Saudi Arabian citizen in the world
As of March 2013, Forbes ranked Al Amoudi as the second richest black person in the world
See Overview Dark Skin and Vitamin D) and ((Dark skin births are much riskier due to lack of vitamin D
Al-Amoudi is a philanthropist and has committed funds to support healthcare and sport in Saudi Arabia, the US, Europe and Africa.
He has funded a breast cancer research centre at King Abdulaziz University.
In 2008, Al Amoudi funded King Saud University’s an enhanced oil recovery research chair.
The Sheikh has also fully funded the King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology at King Saud University.
Nigeria
The Top 50 Richest Nigerian Billionaires
Middle East and low Vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiency in Middle East and North Africa - June 2013 in VitaminDWiki - a few point follow
These include a prevalence of 27% in children < 5 y in North Yemen, 10% in a field sample from rural Egypt, 1% Kuwait if < 2yrs (1981−86), 0.5% of Saudis < 2 y (1997–1999) and 6% in Turkey in 1998 down to < 1% in 2008, the latter following a National Vitamin D supplementation program.11
Rickets accounted for a substantial number of pediatric hospital admissions, 50% of children hospitalized with pneumonia in Yemen, 11% of infant’s admissions with acute illness in Jordan, 6.5% of newborn admissions in Kuwait and 1.8% of pediatric admissions in 1986–88 in Saudi Arabia.9,11 Non-skeletal manifestations of rickets included convulsions in 4−79% of patients, acute chest infections and asthmatic bronchitis in 66% of 500 cases in Saudi Arabia, broncho-pneumonia in 43% of 200 Iranian children and 44% of 250 children from Kuwait. An acute infection or respiratory diseases were the presenting manifestation in 20–60% of cases presenting with rickets in smaller studies from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while gastroenteritis accounted for 8–56% of reasons for admission in hospitals in Middle East. Dilated cardiomyopathy was reported in three infants from Asia, one from Turkey and two from UAE.11 Predictors of rickets included, low maternal vitamin D status, prolonged breast feeding, low socioeconomic status (SES), educational level and crowding. It has been recognized that primary vitamin D deficiency does not adequately describe nutritional rickets explained in some African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries and that concomitant low calcium intake and possibly disturbances of phosphate metabolism, renal compromise and iron deficiency may also play an important role in the pathophysiology of the disease.9
Note: Amount of vitamin D to infants drops drastically after breastfeeding/formula feeding has stopped.
See also VitaminDWiki - Rickets
Overview of Rickets and vitamin D contains the following summary
Rate of rickets is usually < 0.1% of births, unless dark skin, breastfed, preemie, twin, Mongolian, or Russian
Rate of rickets has greatly increased with the drop in vitamin D levels during the past 40 years
400 IU can prevent/treat most rickets Turkey gave vitamin D to EVERY child and eliminated Rickets
Can have rickets without a low serum level of vitamin D (~20% of the time)
Giving enough Vitamin D to the mother (before and after birth) PREVENTS most forms of Rickets
Rate of rickets in some countries varies from 10% to 70% (typically poor health overall)
Rickets has been more than doubling in many countries
Rickets is strongly associated with severe breathing problems (weak ribs)
Bowed legs is not the primary indication of rickets (3 other indications of rickets are seen more often)
Rickets is typically due to low cellular Vitamin D - April 2024
Some Rickets is due to poor genes - Vitamin D needed lifelong – June 2020
Vitamin D and Rickets consensus took 80 years
- What causes Rickets - 1919
- Vitamin D deficiency spares no body part – NE Asia – Jan 2013
- Rickets in 30 percent of infants in India who had low vitamin D – March 2011
- Vitamin D, Cod-Liver Oil, Sunlight, and Rickets: A Historical Perspective – 2003
- Osteopenia in preterm infants – May 2012 = Rickets Lite?
- Black Sudanese children 350X more likely to have rickets than other Australians – April 2012
See also VitaminDWiki - infants
- Third study found that Infants needed 1600 IU of vitamin D – JAMA RCT May 2013
- 400 IU of vitamin D for infants is good, 200 IU is not enough – RCT April 2013
- Breastfed without vitamin D supplements – a problem for NZ infants Jan 2013
- Vitamin D3 far better than D2 at raising infant vitamin D blood levels – Dec 2012 we fear that Vitamin Angels is using D2, not D3
- Reminder – 400 IU is enough only when infant already had a good level of vitamin D – Nov 2012
- Many infant infections avoided with supplementation with 400 IU of vitamin D – Oct 2012
- Comparison of Vitamin D supplementation guidelines for children – China 400 IU 2012
- Infants receiving 1600 IU of vitamin D were safe and healthy – RCT Aug 2012
See also VitaminDWiki - pregnancy
- Needed more than 1600 IU of vitamin D during pregnancy – RCT May 2013
- Bones better after pregnancy with just 200 IU of vitamin D plus 600 Calcium – RCT July 2013 Note: Vitamin Angels pills do not include Calcium
- 35,000 IU vitamin D weekly during 3rd quarter pregnancy – RCT March 2013
- Vitamin D of 32 to 60 ng is needed before, during, and after pregnancy – Dec 2012
- Prevention of vitamin D deficiency in mothers and infants worldwide - a paradigm shift. – Feb 2012
- 200 IU of Vitamin D does not prevent preeclampsia – RCT Aug 2012
- Low vitamin D increased probability of low birth weight by 60 percent – meta-analysis June 2012
- Optimal Vitamin D during pregnancy - 4000 IU March 2012
- Overview Pregnancy and vitamin D
PDF is attached at the bottom of this page URL = http://is.gd/D6months
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