development

Double-fortified salt – developed by 91�Թ� research – fights iron deficiency in India

ullahnor — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 20:22:08 +0000

Double-fortified salt – developed by 91�Թ� research – fights iron deficiency in India

ullahnor Wed, 02/15/2017 - 15:22

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Professor Levente Diosady (centre) and his team developed a way to fortify salt with both iron and iodine. The product is now being distributed to more than 24 million people in India’s Uttar Pradesh state (photo by Mark Balson)

Tyler Irving

Author legacy

Tyler Irving

Topic

Global Lens

Salt

Iron

Malnutrition

Diet

development

India

Micronutrients

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Gates Foundation

Double-fortified salt – developed at 91�Թ� to add more iron and iodine to the diets of those who don't get enough – is now being distributed to 24 million people in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India.

The Tata Trusts, India’s largest charitable foundation, is supporting the state government to procure and distribute the product while the government of Uttar Pradesh is spending more than $40 million to purchase the salt and make it available to low income consumers at subsidized prices.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the product in reducing iron and iodine deficiencies across the population.

“We’re very excited to see our invention being distributed on such a massive scale” says 91�Թ� professor Levente Diosady, who specializes in food engineering at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “The opportunity for engineers to make a difference in the lives of people living with malnutrition is incredible.”

More than twenty years ago, Diosady was approached by Venkatesh Mannar, then a senior advisor to UNICEF, who wanted him to do some simple chemical tests on formulations for double fortified salt.

Mannar’s mission was to address deficiencies in micronutrients, vitamins and minerals needed in small but regular amounts by the human body. Lack of these nutrients can reduce overall health with huge personal and economic impact worldwide.

Ratan Tata (centre, with flowers), chairman of Tata Trusts, is congratulated by the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the launch of the double-fortified salt distribution program (photo courtesy of the Micronutrient Initiative)

Perhaps the biggest success story in the micronutrient world is iodized salt. Many governments around the world have mandated the enrichment of salt – an inexpensive food item consumed regularly by all people – with iodine as a means to ensure that nutritional needs are met.

“Venkatesh was born into a salt-producing family, and he knew how well iodized salt was working in places where it had been tried,” says Diosady. “He wanted to see if we could do the same with iron.”

Iron deficiency leads to anemia, a condition that leaves people feeling tired and weak, making it harder to work or study. According to the World Health Organization, iron deficiency is currently the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world, affecting more than two billion people, and a major contributor to maternal mortality.

But Diosady’s tests showed why iron couldn’t be added to salt in the same way as iodine: the two elements reacted with each other, converting the iodine into a form that simply evaporated away.

Undeterred, Diosady and his team began developing a method for encapsulating the iron so that it wouldn’t react with the iodine. Eventually, they packaged ferrous fumarate, an iron-rich compound, into tiny edible particles that look and feel nearly identical to salt grains, and which dissolve when consumed. These particles enabled the iron to be mixed with iodized salt, resulting in a double-fortified product.

Soon after, Mannar joined the new Micronutrient Initiative as its president and continued to work with 91�Թ� food engineers on programs that proved the acceptability, safety and effectiveness of the double-fortified salt. The results of early trials showed a significant reduction in rates of anemia among children who received the product as part of their school meals.

Today, double-fortified salt produced in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is being added to school lunches provided to more than five million children in the state through a program supported by the Canadian International Development Agency.

The expansion of the project to the state of Uttar Pradesh was a much larger undertaking, requiring even further scale-up of manufacturing.

91�Թ� Engineering, through a grant agreement from Canada’s International Development Research Centre, is supporting the transfer of technology to India and scale up and roll out of the product to 4.6 million families in Uttar Pradesh. Diosady and Mannar, who is now an adjunct professor at 91�Թ�, are co-investigators on the project.

“When we started, we were producing 100 grams at a time in the lab,” says Diosady. “The first order from Uttar Pradesh for the month of January 2017 alone is for 6,000 tonnes.”

Meanwhile, Diosady and his team have continued their research.

They are developing ways to encapsulate other micronutrients, such as folic acid and vitamin B12, with the hopes of making a quadruple-fortified salt. They are also working on adding iron to tea.

“Tea, like salt, is widely consumed in predictable amounts in India and South Asia” says Diosady. “If we can get an iron-fortified tea into the hands of every tea-seller, there is the potential for a very beneficial health effect.”

Even airline luggage restrictions can't faze the 91�Թ� Global Brigades

lavende4 — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 18:50:01 +0000

Even airline luggage restrictions can't faze the 91�Թ� Global Brigades

lavende4 Tue, 10/18/2016 - 14:50

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Student volunteers, Canadian health-care professionals, Global Brigades staff and community volunteers in El Tablon, Honduras

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Undergraduate Students

Health

International

When Nadine Narain and members of the 91�Թ� Global Brigades checked in at Pearson Airport this summer for their flight to Honduras, they took along more than the permitted baggage.

In fact, they had so many walkers, wheelchairs and other physiotherapy aids that the airline staff balked.

“At first, they wouldn’t allow us to take the final walker on the plane because we already had so much with us,” recalled fourth-year global health student Orianna Mak. “They were telling us, ‘You can’t bring any more mobile equipment'."

But the airline staff proved no match for Narain, Mak said.

"She guilt-tripped them, saying ‘This is so unfortunate. This is going to be used by someone in need.’ And finally, the airline representative gave in, and they allowed us to take the equipment aboard.”

The August trip was Narain’s fourth and final Brigade as a 91�Թ� student. (She recently completed her master’s in occupational therapy, and has recently joined the GB Canada Board of Directors.) She wanted to try something new: enlisting the help of other health professionals such as speech language pathologists, and occupational and physical therapists, and bringing along assistive devices to help injured people in remote parts of Honduras become mobile again.

The mission was a success, said fourth-year biology student Melanie Marques, co-president of the medical and dental brigade at 91�Թ�.

“To see a man who hadn’t walked in years, taking his first steps with one of the walkers we took, it just felt so rewarding,” she said.

Find our more about the 91�Թ� Global Brigades

Founded in 2003 by students at Illinois’s Marquette University, Global Brigades is now the world’s largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization with more than 800 university groups.

Members of the Global Brigades spend seven to 10 days at a time, working with local groups to improve quality of life in under-resourced regions – while respecting local culture, says Narain. They work with licensed medical professionals and community health workers to provide health and dental services in rural communities with limited access to health care.

The organization currently focuses on Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Ghana.

Global Brigade members help a pharmacist sort pharmaceutical supplies (photo courtesy 91�Թ� Global Brigades)

It’s definitely not a vacation in the sun. Students have to raise funds to pay for their airfare and for the supplies that they bring to their destination. Once there, they endure long commutes by bus to remote communities – and even longer hours working with local people upon arrival.

Global Brigades is not for everyone, said the group's 91�Թ� campus chair Daniel Derkach, a master’s student studying stem cells at the Institute of Medical Science.

“We don’t like to turn students away," he said. “But we want to make sure they understand exactly what is involved and what they’ll be doing when they’re participating in a Brigade.”

The group tries to ensure the programs are developed with local partners and are designed to meet the needs of the host communities – but the needs of the student volunteers are also considered, Marques said.

“The Brigades do an assessment of the conditions in the host country," she said. "Are the roads safe? Is the community accessible? Will the volunteers be safe?”

The partnership doesn’t end when the volunteers pack up and head home.

“There’s constant communication,” Mak said. “After a Brigade leaves, the head office is constantly following up.”

The 91�Թ� group is already busy planning the next Brigade. There are logistical challenges to meet, fundraising goals to reach, and new people to recruit and screen. Members are also organizing a second conference, which will focus on sustainable development. And they’ll be doing all of this while studying and working.

But the students say they don’t mind.

Marques summed it up for the others: “International development is something that I have always been passionate about and something that I always wanted to do. When I heard about the Global Brigades, it was almost like the universe connected me with this perfect opportunity, and after I went on my first Brigade, I fell in love with the organization.”

Left to right: Daniel Derkach, Nadine Narain, Orianna Mak, Melanie Marques (Photo by Terry Lavender)

development

Double-fortified salt – developed by 91�Թ� research – fights iron deficiency in India

Even airline luggage restrictions can't faze the 91�Թ� Global Brigades

Find our more about the 91�Թ� Global Brigades

Read an earlier 91�Թ� News story about the Global Brigades