vitamin a deficiency and its impact on vision
Post on 20-Jun-2015
394 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
• Major controllable nutritional problem.• 13.8 million children have some degree
of visual loss.• Approximately 250,000 to 500,000
children go blind each year – Half die within a year.
• Decreased dietary intake.• Impaired absorption.• Altered storage.• Increased utilization.• Chronic diarrhoea, malabsorption.
• Night blindness.• Keratomalacia.• Conjunctival dryness, corneal
dryness, xerophthalmia.• Bitot’s spots.• Corneal perforation.• Blindness due to structural damage
to the retina.
NIGHT BLINDNESS
• Earliest symptom.• Eyes cannot adjust
to dim light.• Individual finds
difficult to distinguish images in low levels of illumination.
KERATOMALACIA
• Softening of cornea.• Seen in early
childhood due to vitamin A deficiency.
• Subsequently leads to corneal ulceration and perforation.
XEROPHTHALMIA• Conjunctival
dryness owing to vitamin A deficiency.
• Follows chronic conjunctivitis and vitamin A deficiency diseases.
• Eyes fail to produce tears in this condition.
BITOT’S SPOTS
• Triangular or oval foamy, greyish spots appearing on the cornea due to the deficiency of vitamin A.
CORNEAL PERFORATION
• An anomaly in the cornea due to a damage in the corneal surface.
• Treatment for subclinical vitamin A deficiency includes the consumption of vitamin A-rich foods.
• For clinically evident vitamin A deficiency, treatment includes daily oral vitamin A supplements.
Eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per
day is recommended in order to provide a
comprehensive distribution of
carotenoids.A variety of foods, such as
breakfast cereals, pastries, breads, etc., are
often fortified with vitamin A.
VITAMIN
top related