Marjan Pourmohamadkhan
1 
, Zahra Khorasanchi
2 , Hamideh Ghazizadeh
3 , Atefeh Sedighnia
4 , Behzad Kiani
5 , Omid salemi
6 , Gordon Ferns
7 , Sharareh Rostam Niakan Kalhori
1* , Majid Ghayour-Mobarhan
2,3* 1 Department of Health Information Management, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
3 International UNESCO Center for Health-Related Basic Sciences and Human Nutrition, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
4 Health Technology Incubator Center, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran
5 Department of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
6 Department of Biology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
7 Division of Medical Education, Brighton & Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Brighton, Sussex, UK University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Abstract
Background: Vitamin D deficiency is a prevalent problem in worldwide healthcare related to several system disorders. Food fortification as a solution is associated with several challenges including insufficient coverage of the entire population, required degree of fortification, the vehicles used for fortification and potential toxicity. This study aimed to determine the optimal amount of vitamin D for fortification without surpassing the upper intake level (UL) of intake at the 95th percentile of the Iranian population and compare two methods of food fortification.
Methods: This study is aimed to develop a model of two different fortifying approaches related to an available dataset called MASHAD cohort study. The dataset comprised demographic and nutritional data of 9704 Iranian individuals living in the Greater Mashhad region. The first approach was a computational method necessary to implement a range of eight foods and calculate the optimal approach. In the second case, we used the European formula method called ILSI.
Results: To find the appropriate value for fortification, we calculated the consumption of 400 IU and 1000 IU supplements of vitamin D. Three micrograms per 100 g in each food was the optimal output. We also used Flynn and Rasmussen’s formula on our data. Using these methods, we found that 2.1 micrograms per 100 kcal provides the best result. Hence, using the two different approaches, the results appear to be consistent and promising.
Conclusion: One interesting finding was that supplement consumption did not greatly affect the impact of fortification. This observation may support the hypothesis to determine the amount of fortification, and we can ignore the study population’s supplement consumption.