ABSTRACT
As part of a study of the effects of lysine supplementation of wheat products in Southern Tunisia one qualitative and four quantitative surveys of food consumption were carried out. The average diet provided 7.1 MJ (1,670 kcal), 42 g of protein and 1,280 mg of lysine per person per day. The overall dietary protein thus supplied only 31 mg of lysine/g of protein, or about 56% of the level recommended by the FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Protein Requirements. Addition of lysine to all wheat products to a final effective concentration of 0.2% would raise the dietary lysine level to 45 mg/g protein, or 82% of the FAO/WHO recommended level, at which time threonine would become limiting. Irrespective of whether the FAO/WHO pattern of 1973, breast milk, cow's milk, whole egg or a modification of the FAO pattern of 1957 was used to assess the quality of the protein in the diet, lysine was the first, and threonine the second limiting amino acid (except in comparison with breast milk, which showed tryptophan as the second limiting amino acid). In no case did there appear to be any problem with the sulfur-containing amino acids.
Subject(s)
Amino Acids/analysis , Diet/standards , Adolescent , Adult , Amino Acids, Essential/analysis , Child , Child, Preschool , Diet Surveys , Dietary Proteins/analysis , Dietary Proteins/standards , Energy Metabolism , Female , Food Analysis , Food, Fortified , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Lysine/analysis , Nutritional Requirements , Pregnancy , Triticum/analysis , TunisiaABSTRACT
Deciduous dental eruption in a group of 658 children below 3 years of age in Southern Tunisia was found to be correlated with the general somatic development. On the other hand, this association was less close than that among the different components of somatic growth, suggesting that dental eruption is less affected by the factors which delay somatic growth in that area. Attempts were made to obtain methods of estimating the ages of children using the number of erupted deciduous teeth, both by means of regression equations and by a table of the median age of children with different numbers of pairs of teeth. In both cases the estimates obtainable are not accurate enough to do more than divide the children into coarse age groups. It is concluded that in anthropometric work there is no substitute for accurately known chronological ages.
