🧪 General Principles🟢 BasicNutrition and Deficiency Disorders

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency Disorders

Diseases that result from a lack of specific vitamins or minerals in the diet, common where diets are poor or unbalanced.

Key points

Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness and dry eyes (xerophthalmia) and is a leading cause of preventable childhood blindness.
Vitamin D deficiency causes soft, deformed bones, seen as rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.
Vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, with bleeding gums, easy bruising and poor wound healing.
B-group deficiencies cause specific diseases: a lack of thiamine causes beriberi, a lack of niacin causes pellagra, and a lack of folate or B12 causes anaemia.
Iron deficiency causes anaemia, and iodine deficiency causes goitre and, in children, impaired growth and brain development.

Memory trick

A gives night blindness; D gives rickets and osteomalacia; C gives scurvy; B1 beriberi, B3 pellagra, B12 or folate anaemia; iron gives anaemia; iodine gives goitre.

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🧪 General Principles🟢 BasicNutrition and Deficiency Disorders

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency Disorders

Diseases that result from a lack of specific vitamins or minerals in the diet, common where diets are poor or unbalanced.

Key points

Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness and dry eyes (xerophthalmia) and is a leading cause of preventable childhood blindness.
Vitamin D deficiency causes soft, deformed bones, seen as rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.
Vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, with bleeding gums, easy bruising and poor wound healing.
B-group deficiencies cause specific diseases: a lack of thiamine causes beriberi, a lack of niacin causes pellagra, and a lack of folate or B12 causes anaemia.
Iron deficiency causes anaemia, and iodine deficiency causes goitre and, in children, impaired growth and brain development.

Memory trick

A gives night blindness; D gives rickets and osteomalacia; C gives scurvy; B1 beriberi, B3 pellagra, B12 or folate anaemia; iron gives anaemia; iodine gives goitre.

All of Community Medicine More General Principles