Vaishali Soni, Pritam Halder, Vatsala Soni, Saumyarup Pal, Spandana Mitra
Introduction: Anemia is an important nutrition disorder with major public health importance. In India, anemia prevalence among non-pregnant women (aged 15-49 years) was 57.2% (NFHS-5, 2020-2021). Being rich in iron and other micronutrients camel milk might decrease the nutritional anemia prevalence. The objective was to determine the prevalence of anemia among camel milk consumer vs non-consumer non-pregnant women within reproductive age group in a rural area of Rajasthan.
Methods: A community-based study was conducted among 30 adult female camel milk consumers (CMC). All the participants meeting eligibility criteria were recruited. Same numbers of adult female non-camel milk consumers (NCMC) were recruited with respect to similar age, sex, residence. After taking informed consent a semi-structured interview
schedule containing socio-demographic, dietary characteristics was introduced to all participants in June, 2013. The participants were assessed for their haemoglobin levels from fingertip capillary blood using Cyanmet Haemoglobin method as suggested by Dacia and Lewis (1975). Prevalence of anemia in each group was compared. Data was entered into Microsoft Excel version 2013 and analysed in Stata version 13.
Results: The mean (SD) Hb (g/dL) level of the female in the CMC and NCMC categories was found to be 11.34 (1.01) and 10.76 (1.57) in adult males respectively. This difference was statistically non-significant (p-value 0.47). None of the subjects suffered from severe anemia. Prevalence of anemia was more (66.7%) among non-consumers than camel milk consumers (56.7%). There was a significant difference between these groups (p value 0.007).
Conclusion: Prevalence of anemia among camel milk consumers was lower than non-consumers non-pregnant women within reproductive age group with relatively higher levels of hemoglobin in the former group. Future studies are recommended for further inference.