Vitamin A and nutritional anaemia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study of the prevalence of iron and vitamin A deficiencies in 318 pregnant women revealed that 50.7% had iron deficiency and 21.3% had marginally deficient or deficient vitamin A status. Based on these results, the influence of vitamin A and iron supplementation was studied in 305 anaemic pregnant women in west Java, in a randomized, doubleblind, placebo-controlled field trial. The women with a haemoglobin between 80 and 109 g/L were randomly allocated to four groups: vitamin A (2.4 mg retinol) and placebo iron tablets; iron (60 mg elemental iron as ferrous sulphate) and placebo vitamin A; vitamin A and iron; and both placebos, all daily for eight weeks. Maximum haemoglobin was achieved with both vitamin A and iron supplementation (12.78 g/L, 95% CI 10.86 to 14.70), with one-third of the response attributable to vitamin A (3.68 g/L, 2.03 to 5.33) and two-thirds to iron (7.71 g/L, 5.97 to 9.45). After supplementation, the proportion of women who became non-anaemic was 35% in the vitamin A-supplemented group, 68% in the iron-supplemented group, 97% in the group supplemented with both, and 16% in the placebo group. We conclude that improvement in vitamin A status may contribute to the control of anaemia in pregnant women.