Evaluating Global Barriers to the Use of Red Palm Oil as an Intervention Food to Prevent Vitamin A Deficiency

Abstract

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is an important cause of blindness and premature death. Red palm oil (RPO) is the richest food source of VA-forming carotenoids. RPO carotenoid concentration and bioavailability were evaluated and this data used to estimate the amount of RPO needed to meet VA requirements. Amounts ranged from 6.7 to 29.2 g/d (1.5 to 6.5 tsp/d), which are easily consumed. The amount of RPO needed to supply recommended dietary intakes of VA for all 208100000 individuals most in danger for VAD worldwide for 1 y is 0.80 million metric tons, a fraction of annual world palm oil production. Despite its abundance, RPO has seldom been used for VAD prevention on a national level. Pareto charts were constructed to highlight the variables that influence the ability of RPO to prevent VAD on the national level. The most important variable by far was refining method. Most refining methods are designed to remove color and flavor from RPO, resulting in a bland product that lacks carotenoids. Thus, the important barriers to the use of RPO as a food-based intervention to prevent VAD appear to be that: (1) RPO requires refining, limiting its profitability and availability for small farmers. (2) The goal of most refining methods is to create a low-cost bland, odorless, and colorless fat which requires removal of carotenoids. (3) Cost, since RPO use competes with high-dose VA supplements, which are heavily subsidized. It appears that RPO could prevent VAD in many food-deficit countries if carotenoids were conserved during oil refining, and costs were low enough to make it an attractive alternative to nutritional supplements. Red Palm Oil (RPO) as a Source of Vitamin A (VA)RPO is derived from the flesh of the fruit of oil palms: Elaeis guineensis and the less common Elaeis oleifera (Choo 1994;Poku 2002;Corley and Tinker 2003). Palm fruits develop in large bunches which can contain more than 1000 fruit and weigh more than 10 kg per bunch. Each fruit is the size of a small plum of about 10 g each (Berger and Martin 2000) (Figure 1). RPO gets its color because it contains high concentrations of carotenoids, especially beta-carotene and alpha-carotene (Rukmini 1994;Choo 1994; You and others 2002).RPO has been known as an excellent source of pro-vitamin A (PVA) carotenoids for decades (Moore 1929;Moore 1940aMoore , 1940b. Indeed, it was used to prevent or ameliorate vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in India in the 1930s (Aykroyd and Wright 1937) and West Africa in the 1940s (Raymond 1941). Because of its exceptionally high PVA carotenoid content, RPO has been proposed as a food-based intervention to prevent VAD and tested for this purpose in various small-scale human feeding studies (Roels and others 1963; others 1967, 1968;Rao 1994aRao , 1994b MS 20111228 Submitted 10/8/2011, Accepted 11/25/2011 In this article the amount of RPO it would take to prevent VAD in the people most at risk for VAD, both as individuals and collectively, will be determined. Then the most important biochemical, physiological, and societal facto...

Bioavailability of Palm Oil Carotenoids Consumed from Different Foods

“…Besides, introduction of another food in CPO can release other nutrients or anti-nutritionals factors which could modify carotenoids bioavailability by interfering with: (1) their transfer from meal bolus to micelles; (2) intestinal absorption of micelles; (3) intra-enterocytic transport of carotenoids; (4) integration of carotenoids in chylomicrons; (5) or their secretion in general circulation (Borel et al, 2005). Besides, it is known that 1 µg of retinol corresponds to 2 µg of β-carotene (and 4 µg of others provitamins A) from oils against 12 µg of β-carotene (respectively 24 µg of others provitamins A) from others sources (Betty, 2012).…”

“…Given that foodstuffs have different structures and composition, could have different effects on intestinal absorption of CPO carotenoids and, in consequence, on their bioavailability (Betty, 2012;Souganidis et al, 2013;Kiokias et al, 2016). Thus, the aim of the present work was to evaluate CPO carotenoids bioavailability in the aroused three foods respectively based on cereal, tuber, and leguminous, prepared with the incorporation of CPO.…”

Assessment of an oil palm population from Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) for simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker application

“…About 90% of the palm oil produced is used for food products (Sambanthamurthi et al, 2000). Although the unrefined red palm oil has a high nutritional value (provitamin A and vitamin E), the refined commercial palm oil (color-and odorless) is used due to its low costs and its high oxidative stability (Burri, 2012;Ong and Goh, 2002;Matthäus, 2007).…”

“…Oil palms allow the production of two distinct kinds of oils from two different tissues within the fruits: (red) palm oil from the fruit pulp (mesocarp) around the nut and palm kernel oil from the kernel (Akapanabiatu et al, 2001;Asemota et al, 2004). Red palm oil as a saturated fat contains 44% palmitic acid, 39% oleic acid and smaller percentage of stearic, linolenic, lauric, myristic and linoleic acid (Burri, 2012;Oguntibeju et al, 2009). In addition, RPO is rich in provitamin A carotenoids (alpha-and beta-carotene) as well as vitamin E (both tocopherols and tocotrienols) (Burri, 2012).…”

“…Red palm oil as a saturated fat contains 44% palmitic acid, 39% oleic acid and smaller percentage of stearic, linolenic, lauric, myristic and linoleic acid (Burri, 2012;Oguntibeju et al, 2009). In addition, RPO is rich in provitamin A carotenoids (alpha-and beta-carotene) as well as vitamin E (both tocopherols and tocotrienols) (Burri, 2012). Palm kern oil consists mostly of lauric acid, followed by myristic acid, oleic acid and palmitic acid.…”