Improvement study of the vitamin A supplementation in school age children of 7-12 years old in rural areas, Gansu Province

Objective To investigate the vitamin A (VA)nutritional status of children aged 7-12 in poor rural area of Gansu Province, to evaluate the effect of VA nutrition intervention.Methods 396 children aged 7-12 years were investigated for diet and serum VA. The treatment group consumed cookies intervention and control group kept normal diet, six months later the serum VA were detected again.Results The dietary and serum VA level before intervention were 328.45 μgRE and 433.19 μg/L, respectively. The VA deficiencies was 4.29% and the margin of the VA was 12.37%. After six months of intervention, serum VA levels in the intervention group were (44.03±6.48) μg/L, while those in the control group were (6.65±4.34) μg/L. There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (t=56.451, P<0.001); After intervention, the serum VA deficiency rate was 1.06% in the intervention group and 3.54% in the control group. There was no significant difference between the two groups (χ²=1.610, P=0.204). The serum VA marginal deficiency rate was 3.53% in the intervention group and 9.73% in the control group. There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups(χ²=6.183, P=0.013).Conclusions A school-aged child in a rural area of Gansu Province is in a mild deficiency of VA. VA fortified biscuits supplement can obviously improve the VA nutrition status of children with VA deficiency. This may become a new and hopeful way to resolve the VA deficiency problem.