Eleven-year-old boy loses sight as a result of malnutrition

Unilateral diet leads to massive deficiency symptoms in children

A wrong diet can have dramatic consequences for our health. This is evident in the case of an eleven-year-old from Canada. The boy suffered from numerous food allergies and skin rashes, which is why his parents made a special diet plan. After feeding the child for several months in this way, he could not see it anymore.

Parents want to help child with special diet

The parents probably only wanted to do something good for their child: Since her son suffered from various food allergies and skin rashes, they put together a special diet for him. But the one-sided diet led to dramatic deficiency symptoms. The boy could see worse, until he was almost blind in the end, report Dustin Jacobson from the University of Toronto and colleagues in the journal "JAMA Pediatrics Clinical Challenge".

The case of a Canadian boy shows how important a balanced, vital-rich nutrition is for the eyes. (Image: Dan Race / fotolia.com)

No green vegetables on the menu

The boy's diet consisted of only a few foods: potatoes, pork and lamb, cucumbers, apples, and oat breakfast cereal. This should keep food intolerances and allergies at bay and protect the child from unpleasant skin rashes. Other foods, such as green vegetables, dairy or eggs, did not get the boy. However, the one-sided and extremely limited diet was not without consequences, because within a few months, the eyesight of the boy deteriorated rapidly.

Dry eyesight and loss of vision

At first, the eleven-year-old suffered from extremely dry eyes, then night blindness and photosensitivity were added. Later he could not even look right on the day. When his parents took him to a children's hospital in Toronto, his eyesight was only enough to detect hand movements at a distance of no more than 30 centimeters, the doctors report.

Dry spots on the conjunctiva

The doctors examined the young patient and could not identify any external causes for the sudden loss of vision. There were no signs of violence or redness, and the eleven-year-old had no pain, the authors report. But then the doctors discovered dry spots on the conjunctiva of the eye, which is a typical sign of an A vitamin deficiency.

Vitamin A deficiency, especially in developing countries, is one of the main causes of children losing their sight. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that around 190 million children under the age of five suffer from vitamin A deficiency worldwide. In developed countries, the supply of the vitamin through the daily diet is usually good and a lack rather the exception.

Vitamin A is essential for the vision process

In the Canadian boy, however, the strict diet had caused a massive vitamin A deficiency, which manifested itself after a short time by the vision problems. Because vitamin A, also known as "eye vitamin", is essential for the visual process, as it is directly involved in light processing as part of the visual pigment in the sensory cells of the retina (rods and cones).

If the vitamin is missing, there is an impairment of vision, which first appears in the form of night blindness. This is because the visual pigments of the rods and cones absorb the vitamin at different rates. The visual pigment in the rods (Rhodopsin), which allows seeing in the dark, absorbs the vitamin only slowly. For daytime vision, iodopsin is needed in the cone, which absorbs vitamin A faster.

Child is also considered blind after treatment

To save the child's eyesight, the boy was given several high doses of vitamin A for over two weeks. After six weeks, the child's eyes had recovered a bit - but it will probably never be able to see properly again, the authors fear.

"The vision loss associated with vitamin A deficiency may be reversible, but in cases with established optic atrophy, as is the case with this patient, a certain degree of vision loss is likely to be permanent," the doctors write. Therefore, the 11-year-old continues to be blind after treatment.

Pay attention to food with high levels of vitamin A.

The sad story of the child illustrates how important it is to look after a varied diet rich in vitamins and minerals. High levels of vitamin A are found in animal foods such as liver, kidney or eggs. Butter and cheese are also good suppliers.

In plant foods, the vitamin is often in the form of beta-carotene (provitamin A). The best sources are carrots, green leafy vegetables (spinach, kale, etc.), red peppers, broccoli or apricots. Beta-carotene is more easily absorbed by the organism when consuming some fat, for example a small amount of olive oil. (No)