Dr. Kassai Tibor szerk.: Parasitologia Hungarica 2. (Budapest, 1969)

Parasit. Hung. 2. 55-70.1969 Effect of Giardiasis upon Vitamin A Metabolism Dr. Magda EMBER — László MINDSZENTY Institute for Public Health and Epidemiology, Szeged Almost without exception, publications dealing with nutritional disorders make the point that statistical data are based on severe cases of avitaminosis

. According to specialists of FAO and WHO, a true picture cannot be obtained from these data, because they take no account of.the less severe forms of vitamin deficiency

,of which a diagnosis can be established only by biochemical methods. In the WHO Chronicle (1965) there is a report on the geographical incidence of vitamin deficiencies (32). On the map of this report it would seem that avitaminosis does not exist in Hungary

. At best this is true only for primary avitaminosis. In most cases vitamin A deficiency is (l6),the result of a diet poor in vitamins and proteins and is called primary vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency can also occur in secondary form for even if the vitamin source is adequate certain individuals develop hypovitaminosis as a result of infection, fever or other disease. In these cases the hypovitaminosis is mostly subclinical. The present investigation deals with secondary vitamin A deficiency caused by giardiasis. * Paper presented at the Vllth International Congress of Nutrition, Hamburg, August 3-10 1966.