Adolescent girls in Bangladesh represent a vulnerable group, who have higher nutritional needs relative to energy requirements than other adult members of the household, and are also likely to have limited access to food.
A survey of 300 chicks was repeated during the dry and wet seasons to capture seasonal variations in fish availability. observational data published in BMC Public Health Researchers have been able to combine those risk factors to identify girls who are more likely to be deficient in omega-3s.
Development and validation of an integrated metric for nutritional deficiency.
In adolescent girls, they found that geographic region, salinity, seasonality and higher female autonomy were predictors for the effects of farmed seafood-producing agroecosystems on whole blood omega-3 index, a risk marker of cardiovascular disease and related health outcomes. Is.
It is hoped that this cost-effective tool can now be used by development agencies to assess nutritional deficiencies in vulnerable groups. Identification of individuals particularly at risk will improve the targeting of timely and cost-effective interventions.
Using a few short questions the metric is cheap, can be performed online, and avoids the complexity and cost of finger prick blood sampling and biomarker measurements based on field samples.
Application of the metric could enable the development and implementation of better-informed and more integrated policies and practices regarding aquaculture food production systems.
Further research is needed to assess the metric’s ability to predict omega-3 status in a wider setting by validating it in other LMICs, whose economic performance is also strongly dependent on its aquaculture system.
Improving the assessment of human nutrient status based on fish consumption is also needed, with further evaluation of the metric to determine whether it improves outcomes when used in practice.
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