Limitations of current indicators of micronutrient status

Assessment of micronutrient status is a major concern in public health nutrition, yet there are serious limitations to the indicators currently available. This paper presents the merits of these indicators along with their drawbacks, which include cost, lack of congruence between cutoffs denoting deficiency and adverse functional consequences, and inconsistent methods of evaluating the confounding effects of infections on micronutrient status indicators. Methods for assessing the functional consequences of micronutrient deficiencies are even less well developed; their usefulness would be enhanced by a greater focus on outcomes known to be influenced by deficiencies. Although there have been notable breakthroughs, further improvements in methods to assess micronutrient status are urgently needed.