Deficiency of Vitamin A
Deficiency of Vitamin A has been found to impose adverse effects on roughly one third of the children below the age of five around the world. It has also been found that, per year, deficiency of vitamin A causes the death of about 660,000 children who are less than five years. Deficiency of vitamin A also stands as the reason for about 400,000 children becoming blind every year in developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia as well as Africa. (Combs, 2008)
1) Iodine
Iodine is imperative for the vital hormone development within the human body. Insufficient intake of dietary iodine might direct to the development of an engorged thyroid gland called as goitre and several other iodine deficiency disorders. Iodine deficiency stands as the world''s foremost reason of mental retardation seen within children. The human body requires iodine for making thyroid hormones. The thyroid gland is responsible for regulating almost all the metabolic processes, and is especially important for the proper growth of the body. Thyroxin is the most important hormone secreted by this gland. In case there is not adequate amount of thyroid hormone secreted by the gland, the brain sends a signal to the thyroid gland, after which the gland secrets a calculated dose of the hormones. In case a person is taking too low amount of iodine, the brain continues to send the same signal repeatedly to the thyroid but this does not yield good result. With the aim of making increased thyroid hormone, the gland becomes increasingly large and finally this leads to an overgrowth of the thyroid gland to form a condition known as goitre. (Hamrick et al., 2008)