Targeting Malnutrition
Isotopic Tools for Evaluating Nutrition Worldwide

Contents Foreword by IAEA Director General Hans Blix The Global Nutrition Challenge Vitamin A Deficiency: Identifying Sustainable Solutions Iron Defficiency Anaemia: Finding Effective Interventions Contributing to Safe Motherhood Safeguarding Infants' Health During Breastfeeding Reducing the Costs of Bone Diseases Body Composition: Predictor of Morbidity and Mortality Investigating Trace Elements How Governments and Concerned Organizations Can Participate

In the public at large, few people are aware that the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency extends beyond the realms of nuclear power and safeguarding against the misuse of radioactive materials. Indeed, for many years now IAEA has been applying isotopic and other techniques in a vast array of global scientific challenges - from controlling marine pollution and understanding climate change to boosting livestock production. One of the potentially most fruitful areas for new health-related applications of isotope techniques is in the field of human nutrition. Agency activities in Human Health, as well as in Technical Co-operation, include a new emphasis on isotope techniques as tools to evaluate human nutritional status and the nutritional quality of foods within the context of national development programmes. These techniques are now considered the best methods for measuring the uptake and bioavailability of may important vitamins and minerals. They are thus well suited for determining the success of food supplementation programmes and other interventions aimed at combating many forms of malnutrition. This booklet provides a brief description of pioneering Agency-supported work to evaluate vitamin A and iron deficiencies, bone disease, undernutrition and obesity and the special nutritional requriemtns of pregnant and lactating women and their children.