A $1-million grant will help further Dr. Kyly Whitfield’s research on infant nutrition in Cambodia and has the Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) professor feeling “profoundly grateful” as she heads back to Southeast Asia.
“We received the funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Sackler Institute. I found out in October, but it’s only been the last few days that I’ve been able to share the news,” says Whitfield, who has worked at MSVU as an assistant professor in applied human nutrition since July 2016.
Whitfield’s research, which she first began as a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, is on thiamine deficiency and infantile beriberi — a frequently fatal condition that is almost unheard of in Canada but common in many regions around the globe.
The disease affects babies whose mothers don’t get enough thiamine, also known as vitamin B1, in their diet, resulting in nutritionally-deficient breastmilk. In Canada, we get thiamine easily by eating a wide variety of foods, such as whole grains, brown rice, whole wheat bread and other whole wheat products. It’s also present in pork, legumes and nuts.
“In Southeast Asia, people are eating white polished rice — it makes up 65 per cent of the diet — it’s the sheer volume of white rice being consumed that causes the problem,” says Whitfield.
While it’s known to be widespread throughout the region, the number of cases can be difficult to track as beriberi is often misdiagnosed or missed entirely due to the “unspecific” nature of the symptoms.
“The signs are often not something that would prompt a mum to take the baby into the health centre,” explains Whitfield. “Often when the baby dies, it is reported as cause unknown.”
If a baby is diagnosed with beriberi quickly enough, the infant can “bounce back within a few hours” after a thiamine supplement, she says. The hope, however, is that their research will lead to a solution to prevent the condition entirely by finding a way to ensure mothers not only get thiamine in their diet, but to determine “the exact dose needed to optimize the breast milk.”
Whitfield’s previous research looked at fortifying fish sauce with thiamine, as it is a staple condiment used daily throughout Cambodia to prepare meals. The problem, however, is that it’s not used much in some other areas that also have higher rates of beriberi in babies, such as Myanmar and Laos.
“When we looked into it, we realized that salt is much more pragmatic, moving forward,” she says. “It is consumed regularly across the entire region and it is a much more centralized industry in terms of production.”
The team will also be working with researchers from the University of Oregon to study whether low levels of thiamine causes long-lasting cognitive deficits, as some studies indicate there may be a connection between lower levels of thiamine in infancy — even those that don’t lead to beriberi — and poor school performance later on.
“For years we have been blaming poor school performance among children in this region on stunted growth or anemia. What if it’s not those things? What if it’s actually subclinical thiamine deficiency?” she says.
Whitfield hopes to be able to share results from the research by fall 2019.
Along with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at The New York Academy of Sciences, the research is supported by the University of Oregon, Helen Keller International, the Cambodian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Planning, the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement.http://thechronicleherald.ca/halifaxcitizen/1542289-msvu-prof-dr.-kyly-whitfield-receives-1-million-grant-to-continue-research