Vitamin A Status and Serum Carotenoid Levels of Adolescent School Girls from Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Objectives: Determine the vitamin A status and serum carotenoid levels of adolescent school girls from Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Methods: Serum samples separated from nonfasting venous blood were analyzed for retinol, α-carotene and β-carotene using reversed phase HPLC. The chromatographic separation was performed by isocratic elution with a mixture of methanol, dichloromethane and acetonitile (60:20:20 by volume) and at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. The concentrations of retinol and carotenoids were quantified at 325 and 450 nm, respectively. Results: Mean levels of serum retinol and α-carotene were 35.9µg/dL and 10.5µg/dL, respectively and the median value of β-carotene was 46.4µg/dL. About 3% of the school girls were vitamin A deficient and 26% had serum retinol values indicative of marginal vitamin A status. Clinical assessments revealed that 3.7% and 3.2% had Bitot’s spot and night blindness, respectively. About 27% of the girls mentioned the word “HIMA”, a local term for night blindness. Residence, age, hematocrit and β-carotene were the significant predictors of serum retinol concentrations (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our results demonstrated high levels of marginal vitamin A deficiency in adolescent girls. Because of cultural differences in food preparation, food consumption and food taboos in different parts of the country, our study is not generalizeable to all regions from Ethiopia and thus multicenter studies to substantiate our results and establish the vitamin A status of adolescents are recommended.