Research: Preventing Thiamine Deficiency Disease Through Fortified Salt

Dr. Kyly Whitfield with Cambodian research participants - mom is providing a milk sample for analysis.

Thiamine deficiency is a public health concern in many parts of the world, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Thiamine deficiency related diseases can be fatal, especially for children. MSVU is proud to play a vital role in related forward-thinking research and critical advancements around the globe.

In 2018, Dr. Kyly Whitfield, Department of Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University, and her team started working on a life-saving solution for this dietary issue.

The four-year project is wrapping up this year with the team running the final data analysis now.

“Our hope is to roll out thiamine-fortified salt through Southeast Asia and South Asia and other parts of the world,” says Dr. Whitfield.

Their research project added thiamine-fortified salt to the diets of Cambodians. “It’s thiamine deficiency in the mother that causes the disease in the baby,” says Dr. Whitfield. “Our whole goal is to prevent the disease by getting thiamine into moms. And we’re doing that by adding it to salt. With salt, people don’t need to change their behavior. It’s a passive intervention. We want to increase the thiamine in the diet just a bit, enough to make its way through the breastmilk to the baby and prevent all of these unnecessary infant deaths.”

The project was made possible thanks to $1.2 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences. Graduate students Kathleen Chan and Jelisa Gallant were supported by MSVU Graduate Entrance Scholarships, Research Nova Scotia Scotia Scholars Awards, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Masters Graduate Scholarships.