BMJ 1995;311:256 (22 July)

Letters

Chapati flour should be fortified as well

EDITOR,--All those who have a serious interest in improving the nation's health should endorse the recommendations made by Nicholas J Wald and Carol Bower to support the fortification of flour to prevent neural tube defects.1 It is heartening to see a true population-wide strategy for a population-wide problem. Other solutions--such as preconceptional encouragement of an increased intake of folic acid--are not only naive but, like other preconceptional approaches, likely to be ineffective.

If the whole population at risk is to be reached effectively by this policy one caveat must be added to the proposals. Fortification of wheat flour and bread alone is not enough: the proposed policy will have no impact on those Asian communities who do not eat bread. To learn from the lessons of previous programmes against rickets and to prevent inequalities from creeping into the outcomes to be expected we should also aim to fortify chapati flour . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Folic acid and the prevention of neural tube defects
Nicholas J Wald and Carol Bower
BMJ 1995 310: 1019-1020. [Extract] [Full Text]

Access all current jobs at BMJ Group
Whats new online at Student BMJ
Listen to the latest BMJ Interview