Medical doctor, Bandim Health Project at Statens Serum Institut
| Christine Stabell Benn, MD, Ph.d. Medical doctor, Bandim Health Project at Statens Serum Institut |
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Primary research interests: My main research area is the effect of vitamin A supplementation on overall mortality in low-income countries. Studies in the 1980s and 1990s showed that vitamin A supplementation may decrease overall mortality by 23-30%, making vitamin A supplementation the most cost-efficient intervention against childhood mortality. The effect of vitamin A supplementation has been ascribed to prevention of vitamin A deficiency. However, the revention-of-deficiency-hypothesis does not account for existing data, for instance vitamin A supplementation seems to be beneficial when given at birth or between 6 months and 5 years of age, but not when given between 1 and 5 months of age. Furthermore, in some situations vitamin A supplementation has been associated with increased mortality, suggesting that it may have effects beyond protection of deficiency. I have proposed the hypothesis that vitamin A supplementation interacts with routine vaccinations in childhood, amplifying the non-specific effects of vaccinations. The hypothesis has been supported in several yet unpublished studies. My research has emphasised sex-differences in the response to vitamin A supplementation; young boys seem to benefit more from vitamin A supplementation than young girls. These sex-differences may in part be the result of vitamin A-vaccine interactions. My current research follows two lines. First, we seek to investigate the effect of vitamin A supplementation on mortality in both sexes and according to vaccination status in large randomised trials in Guinea-Bissau. Second, we have initiated immunological studies of vitamin A and vaccines. Our overall aim is to improve our understanding of the effects of vitamin A supplementation in order to optimise the vitamin A supplementation policy in low-income countries. |