Malnutrition : The reason behind all maladies

September 1-7 is being celebrated as National Nutrition Week. This year the theme is 'Malnutrition, a silent emergency'. The aim of the National Nutrition Week is to raise awareness of how food and lifestyle changes have an impact on our health. The theme is apt as the common man and especially students are facing health challenges

Lata Jain

Stress and nutrition:

Stress is so often talked about and written these days. We all complain of being “stressed” at one time or another. Perhaps stress has become such a familiar word that we forget its true meaning and impact.

Managing stress is probably the most important factor for health and disease prevention. If the body efficiently adapts to stress, it returns to a state of balance which is called Homeostasis. When the body is under stress, demand for nutrients is high. A good stress busting diet contains plenty of good quality protein both from animal sources such as fish, eggs and poultry and from non animal sources such as tofu, lentils, beans and nuts.

Taking a good meal, full of multivitamins and minerals, helps top up nutrient reserves in the event of stress. A multivitamin should contain sizeable quantities of each nutrient mentioned below, that will make a difference.

• Vitamin B is required for the metabolism of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates such as bread, pasta or sweet foods, needs to be broken down into glucose which can be absorbed by the body and converted into energy.

• Vitamin B5 is needed for making the stress hormone Cortisol and to gether with vitamin C, is found in higher concentrations in adrenal tissue than any other body tissue.

• Vitamin B12 is needed for making adrenaline, the fight or flight hormone which is discharged in response to stress.

• Vitamin B6 is required for producing calming neurotransmitter called GABA and for formation of other neurotransmitters, seratonin,dopamine and adrenalin.

• Magnesium is an important mineral for healthy nervous system support. Increased activity of Sympathetic Nervous System(SNS) could lead to magnesium depletion if reserves of this mineral are not high enough.

• The immune system requires Vitamin D to function properly and deficiency of this vitamin is very common due to lack of sunshine and insufficient dietary sources from oily fish and dairy foods. Zinc is another essential immunity nutrient which is not widely available through the diet.

• Stress increases the production of damaging free radicals. Antioxidants Vitamins A, C and E and Minerals-Zinc and Selenium “quench” free radicals, stopping their destructive effect on cells.

• Oxidative stress occurs in the body when there are too many free radicals and insufficient antioxidants to deal with them.

Food bill and nutrition:

The time is ripe in India to consider malnutrition as a population issue, rather than only as a women and child issue. Apart from worrisome data on child malnutrition infant, child, and maternal mortality rates, indicators of malnutrition and anemia among adult males and females are equally disturbing. 28.1% of adult men and 33.0% of adult women have a low body mass index, resulting in Chronic Energy Deficiency (CED). 24.3% of adult men suffer from anaemia.

Children and women are undoubtedly the worst sufferers of malnutrition, owing to a vicious mix of causes—economic, behavioral, cultural, and governance related. Adolescent malnutrition indicators are equally worrisome, particularly when India considers its vast human resource as its greatest asset.

Considering this problem, the UPA government launched the Food Bill. But is the Food Bill a panacea or should we have to make more amends to the food bill to take care of the malnourished and the under weight?

Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that between 2010-12, India had 217 million people at risk due to malnourishment.

“The bill only provides cereals, which does not ensure that the targeted population will get adequate nutrition. The government should also be made accountable for the nutritional needs of the people,” says Biraj Patnaik an advisor to the commission.

Organic or conventional food: Nutrition factor

To many, buying organic food means a healthy choice. Health experts and consumers have long debated whether organic foods are more nutritious—and safer—than conventional foods.

People who buy organic food usually cite these reasons for their decision: they are safer, kinder to the environment and healthier. Advocates of organic foods, meanwhile, say that the study takes a narrow view of organic food choices and that most people choose organic food because they want to avoid pesticides and other chemicals used in conventional farming.

Hundreds of scientific studies have looked at just that question for various fruits and vegetables, based on the idea that fewer pesticides and organic growing methods allow for more nutrients into the soil, and therefore could raise the nutritional content of organically grown foods. Studies show that organic milk has risen in popularity because of concerns over bovine growth hormone, used to stimulate milk production in conventional dairy farms. The hormone occurs naturally in cows, and the Food and Drug Administration has argued that use of the hormone does not change the milk. Weak evidence suggested that organic produce contained higher levels of Phenols, which may have antioxidant properties, and that organic milk and chicken supplied more Omega-3 fatty acids than conventional varieties.

Crystal Smith-Spangler and her colleagues, who reviewed many of the studies comparing organic and conventionally grown food, acknowledge that there are other reasons to choose organic foods, including concerns for animal welfare and the environment and preference for the taste of such foods. But her study suggests that when it comes to nutrition and food safety, conventional food is on par with organic. And it’s usually cheaper, too.