TEHRAN, Iran—Researchers from the Digestive Disease Research Center in Shariati Hospital at the University of Tehran Medical Sciences have tracked vitamin deficiencies in adults from the Golestan Province, a high-incidence area for esophageal cancer in northern Iran. Published in the Archives of Iranian Medicine (2010 Sep;13(5):391-4), the cohort study utilized food frequency questionnaire and food intake data from 30,463 healthy participants; they compared the intakes of selected nutrients with recommended daily allowance and lowest threshold intake (LTI) values.
They found vitamin A intake was lower than recommended in a majority of participants, with high percentages of subjects having lower intakes than the LTI: 20 percent of men, 31 percent of women, 48 percent of rural men and 64 percent of rural women had such intakes. Deficiencies of vitamin C were similar, although a little less common than with vitamin A—6 percent of urban men, 9 percent of urban women, 13 percent of rural men and 19 percent of rural women had lower than LTI intakes of vitamin C. In contrast, protein intake in the general Golestan adult population was higher then recommended.
Given the high rates of esophageal cancer in the region, the researchers suggested vitamin deficiencies may partly be to blame, with particularly alarming rates among rural dwellers and women.
