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The Impact of Food Fortification on Health and Nutrition Outcomes...
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The Impact of Food Fortification on Health and Nutrition Outcomes (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Micronutrients and Human Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 November 2025 | Viewed by 702

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Andrew G. Hall

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Interests: micronutrient intake; zinc; noncommunicable diseases; nutrient requirements
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over recent decades, notable progress has been made towards the improvement of malnutrition on a global scale. Nutrition priorities to support health are likewise changing. In many settings, micronutrient deficiencies remain in parallel to, and may even exacerbate, growing epidemics of communicable and noncommunicable diseases.

Food fortification increases the micronutrient density of foods, supporting increases in immune and metabolic competence, improving health outcomes. Cost-effectiveness, applicability both to mass scale and targeted interventions, and efficacy, are major advantages supporting innovation in food fortification systems and expanded use of food fortification. To inform the best placement of these advancements, it is critical to effectively link the increased intakes of micronutrients of concern with related improvements in health outcomes.

This special issue of Nutrients welcomes original research and reviews covering food fortification impacts on nutrition and human health outcomes. The scope of this issue spans from preparatory research evaluating dietary patterns and current health issues towards selection of foods for fortification, to clinical and population-based studies of efficacy and effectiveness. It encompasses studies ranging from the evidence-based exploration of the potential health impacts of future fortification, to the direct quantification of micronutrient bioavailability and impacts on nutrition and health outcomes.

Dr. Andrew G. Hall
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • food fortification
  • health outcomes
  • micronutrients
  • nutrition status
  • malnutrition
  • food systems

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

23 pages, 507 KiB  
Article
The Effectiveness of Zinc-Biofortified Wheat Flour Intake on the Growth and Morbidity Outcomes of Rural Pakistani Children and Adolescent Girls: A Cluster-Randomised, Double-Blind, Controlled Trial
by Swarnim Gupta, Mukhtiar Zaman, Sadia Fatima, Victoria H. Moran, Jonathan K. Sinclair and Nicola M. Lowe
Nutrients 2025, 17(7), 1137; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17071137 - 25 Mar 2025
Viewed by 594
Abstract
Background: Zinc-biofortified cereals are a promising strategy to combat zinc deficiency, though evidence on health outcomes is limited. This study assessed the effectiveness of consuming zinc-biofortified wheat flour on growth and zinc-related morbidity among adolescent girls (10–16 years; N = 517) and children [...] Read more.
Background: Zinc-biofortified cereals are a promising strategy to combat zinc deficiency, though evidence on health outcomes is limited. This study assessed the effectiveness of consuming zinc-biofortified wheat flour on growth and zinc-related morbidity among adolescent girls (10–16 years; N = 517) and children (1–5 years; N = 517) living in rural north-west Pakistan. Methods: In this double-blind, cluster-randomised controlled effectiveness trial, 486 households received either zinc-biofortified or control wheat flour for 25 weeks. Anthropometric measurements and lung function tests (LFTs) were performed at the beginning, middle, and endline. Data on the incidence and duration of respiratory tract infection (RTI) and diarrhoea in the preceding two weeks were collected fortnightly. Analyses included baseline-adjusted linear mixed models for continuous outcomes and Pearson’s chi-square for categorical data. Results: At a zinc differential of 3.7 mg/kg for adolescent girls provided by zinc-biofortified wheat flour, the intervention had no significant effect on height or weight. For children, head circumference was significantly greater in the biofortified group at endline (control 48.47 ± 2.03 cm vs. intervention 48.76 ± 1.82 cm; p = 0.003), with no differences in other anthropometric parameters. Towards the end of the trial, a lower incidence of RTIs was reported in the intervention arm compared to the control arm for both children (week 26: control 27.4% vs. intervention 17.6%, p = 0.036) and adolescent girls (week 24: control 19.3% vs. intervention 11.5%, p = 0.037; week 26: control 14.5% vs. intervention 6.1%, p = 0.014). When the longitudinal prevalence (cumulative days of sickness as a percentage of total days) of RTI was considered, no treatment effects were observed. No benefits of treatment were reported for diarrhoea or LFT. Conclusions: The provision of zinc-biofortified wheat flour for 25 weeks did not have a significant effect on the growth of adolescent girls but modestly improved head circumference in children. Longer-term interventions are needed to monitor changes in functional outcomes with the national scale-up of zinc-biofortified wheat varieties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Food Fortification on Health and Nutrition Outcomes (2nd Edition))
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