UN NUCLEAR AGENCY SEEKS WAYS TO BOOST NUTRITION AMONG WORLD'S POOR

UN NUCLEAR AGENCY SEEKS WAYS TO BOOST NUTRITION AMONG WORLD'S POOR New York, Aug 15 2008 3:10PM The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (<"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2008/biofortification.html">IAEA) has been exploring avenues to tackle the issue of nutritional deficiencies in the world's poor.

Biofortification – a fairly new tactic to improve nutrition through conventional plant breeding techniques – was the focus of an IAEA meeting held this week with a group of scientists and institutions called HarvestPlus.

IAEA "uses nuclear techniques to evaluate bioavailability and efficacy in humans," said Lena Davidsson, who heads the Agency's Nutritional and Health-related Environmental Studies Section.

Unlike traditional means to add nutrients to food in the processing stages, biofortification seeks to do this while staple plants are being grown, and these new crops could reach those who lack access to centrally processed fortified foods.

"With our biofortification strategy, we try to put more vitamins and minerals into the foods staples that the poor are already eating in large amounts, said Howarth Bouis, Director of HarvestPlus.

IAEA has teamed up with the scientists in a four-year project in Asia and Latin America: HarvestPlus develops biofortified foods, while IAEA tests the body's ability to use the nutrient-packed crops.

Under this scheme, some women in Bangladesh have replaced the typical white-coloured sweet potato with a biofortified orange one that is higher in beta-carotene. A sophisticated stable isotope technique will measure their vitamin A levels to determine how the biofortified products could combat nutritional deficiencies.

Compared to more traditional tests, stable isotope techniques allow more sensitivity and specificity in their measurements.
2008-08-15 00:00:00.000

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