Vitamin A supplements may be beneficial in decreasing childhood death and disease. Individuals lacking the vitamin seemingly have impaired body functions and are more vulnerable to blindness, infection along with early death. According to a recent study, vitamin A supplements reduce the incidence of measles as well as diarrhoea and eventually save lives.
Scientists undertook 43 trials which encompassed 215,633 children between six months and five years of age. Only one trial used the standard dose of vitamin A as recommended by the WHO. Vitamin A capsules apparently reduced the risk of death from any cause by 24 percent as compared to placebos or usual treatment. It was concluded that vitamin A supplementation may help avoid measles and diarrhoea.
Zulfiqar Bhutta, Chairman of the Division of Women and Child Health at Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan and the senior reviewer of the project, and colleagues link vitamin A with a decrease in diarrhoea and measles occurrence along with a decline in the number of child deaths due to these diseases. It was mentioned that the effects of supplementation on disease pathways are probably not well understood. The study findings can supposedly aid to pull down the number of deaths caused by diarrhoea and measles.