Consideration of Phytonutrients, Probiotics and Prebiotics for enhanced immunity during disaster relief situation – A review

Summary: Background: Disasters cause diseases, disrupt food supply systems, and expose people to food and nutritional instability. Malnutrition issues, recurrent infections, contaminated food, and inadequate access to essential resources make an already vulnerable population more vulnerable. For the first 15 days, emergency food assistance is of the utmost importance. Nutritional challenges become critical for vulnerable groups and patients for their specific dietary requirements. In addition, infections, foodborne illness, poor immunity is yet another challenge faced by affected population after any disaster. Method: Relevant literature was searched using Google Scholar, PubMed and other international organization databases using keywords such as “disaster and public health”, “nutrition during disaster”, “food selection in disaster”, “biscuits or food bars for disaster”, “phytochemicals”. Results: The current manuscript emphasizes on an analytical discussion of already available ready-to-eat foods that are now on the market as disaster relief products. Mortality during disaster is high in vulnerable groups due to their compromised immunity. These populations could be benefitted by providing a disaster relief food with additional immune-boosting nutraceutical properties such as phytochemicals, probiotics, and prebiotics. By providing disaster specific foods rich in probiotics, prebiotics and phytonutrients to the immune-compromised population, health consequences associated with disasters such as digestive issues, respiratory illnesses, and chronic diseases can be reversed. Conclusion: Inclusion of phytochemicals and immunity boosting foods into the disaster relief program will help the population having compromised immunity or metabolic disorders to have better coping strength to the adverse disaster conditions. Although providing adequate amounts of macronutrients is the first practical consideration, phytonutrients and probiotics would be helpful to alleviate a variety of health complications during crises. Phytochemical-enriched ready-to-eat products can be used for additional immunomodulatory benefits in disaster relief. Food products having additional health benefits for disease-specific population should be developed and provided to them for better survival.