UN warns of the threat to the IQ of nations

[JoFerret]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1177298,00.html

About one in three people around the world are not getting enough vitamins and minerals, lowering the IQ of nations, contributing to the death of 1 million children a year and leading to mental impairment in 20 million babies, a UN report said yesterday.
Its authors called on companies to fortify foods with nutrients missing from diets in developing countries and to provide supplements through low-cost tablets, capsules and syrups for children, and women of child-bearing age.

The "ubiquitous" shortage of vitamins and minerals "debilitates in some significant degree the energies, intellects and economic prospects of nations", the report said.

...

"Resources and technology to bring vitamin and mineral deficiencies under control do exist," said Venkatesh Mannar, president of the Micronutrient Initiative, who wrote the report with Unicef.

Effects on health and intelligence because of shortages were huge. "In many countries the children are very slow to react and it is due to these deficiencies," he said.
....

[izzie]

1. They talked about way back in college

It is the first time in history we have just kept people alive mostly with out proper food and let them grow up. There have been people looking into this.Until the middle of the 20th Cen usually you lived if you were strong but with the way things went almost all people are kept alive. They were starting to study this as a problem. These people also have children. Interesting study.

[lilymidnite]

2. Dark ages

Truly this time in history will be remembered as a 'dark age'.
(That is, if we survive).

[Minstrel Boy]

3. I agree

A very appropriate Bruce Cockburn quote in your sig line.

And welcome to DU. :hi:

[jamesconway]

5. I Don't Know

I mean, haven't people always eaten fairly poorly up until this point in time. Call me uneducated on this, but I can't see why someone in, say, the Central African Republic would eat any worse now than two centuries ago.

[Eye and Monkey]

7. You could learn alot about googling +"politics of famine".

That is the title of a book as well as an issue.

[NickB79]

12. Soil depletion?

Just a thought that popped into my head, but much of the world's arable farmland is starting to become depleted of minerals that previously were taken up and stored by the crops grown on the land. Grow crops on mineral-depleted land, and your intake of dietary minerals decreases? Also, I've read studies that found crops grown in soils kept fertile from composting and sustainable agricultural practices (esp. organic farming) have higher vitamin content than crops grown on conventionally farmed soils kept fertile primarily through use of chemical fertilizers. So, as the soil is depleted, crops grown on it cannot provide enough of the vitamins and minerals we require that they used to supply us with.

[Lisa]

14. yes -- one guy I know who studies this issue describes it like this ...

Modern chemical fertilizers provide the "macronutrients" (e.g. nitrogen) -- rapid and prolific plant growth results. Along the way, the plants take up much more of the micronutrients (such as manganese and magnesium, small amounts of which are needed to make particular enzymes function -- kind of like how you need iron atoms to make the hemoglobin in our blood). It takes a very long time to replenish these nutrients, such as through windblown dust from other regions -- and over the past 30-40 years we have managed to rip through the amounts that are there, so some areas are now lacking.

p.s. That researcher also told me that illnesses such as AIDS affect populations much more severely if they don't have adequate nutrients to fight them off. He said that places in Africa which have naturally high selenium level in the soil seem to have lower rates of some kinds of diseases.

[newyawker99]

4. Hi enoel2!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Thus the explanation of the * phenom, at last! n/t

[camero]

8. Translation

Let us drug you up some more.

[NickB79]

11. It's really a stretch to call vitamins and minerals drugs

Vitamin D in milk, iodine in salt, calcium in juice, zinc, iron, magnesium, etc, can hardly be called drugs in the conventional sense.

[camero]

13. You really think these"vitamins and minerals"

aren't going to be "artificial flavors and preservatives". I can't exactly trust the government to make sure food is safe and pure anymore. Especially when so much of this stuff is cooked up in a lab.

[Eye and Monkey]

15. Link to the actual report and small clarification.

For the UN's Micronutrient Initiative site:
http://www.micronutrient.org/

For the full report:
http://www.micronutrient.org/reports/reports/Full_e.html

Small clarification: this initiative seems to target humanitarian interventions as a platform for promoting better nutrition. As such, it would rarely include processed foods such as most westerners purchase in grocery stores. Virtually all UN-sponsored food programs distribute "raw" foods, such as corn meal, cooking oil, pulses. The exceptions would be BP5, a high-protein biscuit, and the age-appropriate fortified milk powders. I believe that both are produced via contract with UNICEF; as such they meet standards set by UNICEF rather than commercial producers.

I would also venture that this report is a prelude for UNICEF requesting a larger budget for including vitamins with food distributions. Again, these vitamins are not the basic "over-the-counter" versions from western countries. Rather they are typically fairly large-single-dose oral and injectable versions.

[camero]

16. IOW

Cooked up in a lab.

[Eye and Monkey]

17. I don't know what IOW is.

[camero]

18. In Other Words

:)

[Eye and Monkey]

20. Oh. Thanks. Yes, vitamins are made in manufacuring facilities.

So are vaccines, which UNICEF widely promotes. And to some extent, the US government's contribution to UN food programs will inevitably include "frankenfoods". However, there have been situations where humanitarian organizations and/or developing countries will refuse to allow "frankenfoods" to be distributed. And there have been criticisms and suspicions regarding vaccines.

Nonetheless, I hope you get my point. It is not as if UNICEF were distributing chemical-packed Hostess Twinkies and MacCheeseburgers to the starving children of the developing world.

Would you like me to post one of the photos that I have taken on nutritional assessments in developing countries? That way, you can see some of the children who will be missing out if UNICEF doesn't expand its progamming.

[camero]

21. I would hope they do think about not giving them...

Frankenfoods. I understand the problems of malnutrition in developing countries. However, the problem is also the exploitation of peasants and the total lack of land reform along with education of proper farming techniques.

The article also implies that it is the cause of lower IQs in the Western World and that the solution is more manufactured foodstuffs. Which I am very leery of without tight regulations.

[Eye and Monkey]

23. Pheasants make great eating, but I don't think that is the solution.

Apologies, I couldn't resist.

Yes, the problem of frankenfoods stems overwhelmingly from the US government's marked tendency to promote the interests of the agrocorporations. I do not think that they are the choice of many if any professionals in the field (at least not among professionals who are not bought-and-paid-for).

The three factors you identify are significant in malnutrition and food security. There are many more as well.

I would note that the Guardian article is one thing, the full UN report is another. There is, nonetheless, a serious problem in western countries regarding poor dietary habits, particularly micronutrient deficiencies in some specific populations.

I am also quite leery of manufactured foodstuffs. And as we both seem to know, processed foods are a primary reason for many deficient diets.

[camero]

25. Peasants, thanks :)

Yes I would agree with that about the Western World and I will check out the full UN report tomorrow morning. Getting too tired to think. :)

Gotta use spell check more. :dunce: :) Thanks for the input.

[Eye and Monkey]

26. Thank you. Really.

It's so nice to have a bit of discussion without someone throwing ad hominems and mischaracterizing comments. Cheers to you!

[camero]

27. Yeah, it is

It's a rarity nowadays. Thanks and goodnight. :)

[BiggJawn]

9. Lemme guess, a diet "rich" in "High-Fructose Corn Sweetners"?

Cuppa Fructose, 3 cuppas high-glycemic potato starch, some "enriched" white flour for "body", some GM soy lecithin, partialy and totally-hydrogenated palm kernal oil (wax) and artifical colours and flavours derived from coal tar....

YUMM! Snack Food!

Eatum up, you stupid Sheeple!

[maggrwaggr]

10. yeah, so what's America's problem?

why are americans so frigging stoopid?

Maybe it IS that flouride in the water .... hmmmmmmmmm......

[Dirk39]

19. Calm down, it's just communist propaganda,

all of those people still have the capacity to find the yellow M and watch fair and balanced news-channels in a free society. And in a democratic society the people, who can't afford a SUV, at least are permitted to breath a SUV.
They hate us for our freedom, vote Kerry, vote Bush, be happy, fight terror. I want to buy another SUV and I'm looking for a job: if the USA wants to improve Guantanamo Bay, ask me first.

Hello from VW-BMW-Daimler Germany,
Dirk

[burrowowl]

22. This has been going on a long time

a 'recent' example: a friend of mine has a brother who is a catholic missionary in Peru and he was telling us how the Indians are chased off their land, made to do the equivalent of slave labor and thus could not feed their children properly, since they could no longer farm or hunt, just buy from the equivalent of the company store. (At a certain stage in growth, the infant needs protein or brain development will be impaired, the protein all went to the bread-winner of the family to keep him able to work.) He said the mental retardation had grown over 40% in 10 years. And this was in 1978.
Damn Campel's Soup and other Corpolites!
The same occurred in Mexico in the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, thanks to American Smelting and Refining, etc., etc., etc......

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[maggrwaggr]

24. ach! Zhe Schtoopid Vuns make for better Vorkers, no?

keep 'em dumb, keep 'em watching their TeeVees, keep 'em shopping at WalMart and everything will be just peachy.

Oh yeah and go ahead and dump that toxic waste in their front yards, they'll never notice.