University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM UVM Honors College Senior Theses Undergraduate Theses 2015 A Computational Approach for Identifying Plant-Based Foods for Addressing Vitamin Deficiency Diseases Christina Yu University of Vermont Indra Neil Sarkar University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses Recommended Citation Yu, Christina and Sarkar, Indra Neil, "A Computational Approach for Identifying Plant-Based Foods for Addressing Vitamin Deficiency Diseases" (2015). UVM Honors College Senior Theses. 212. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/212 This Honors College Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in UVM Honors College Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A Computational Approach for Identifying Plant-Based Foods for Addressing Vitamin Deficiency Diseases Christina Yu1 and Indra Neil Sarkar2,3 Key words: computing methodologies, vitamin deficiency diseases, vegetarian diet 1 Undergraduate Program in Biochemistry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 2 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 3 Center for Clinical and Translational Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 1 ABSTRACT Vitamins are nutrients that are essential to human health, and deficiencies have been shown to cause severe diseases. In this study, a computational approach was used to identify vitamin deficiency diseases and plant-based foods with vitamin content. Data from the United States Department of Agriculture Standard Reference (SR27), National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings and MEDLINE, and Wikipedia were combined to identify vitamin deficiency diseases and vitamin content of plant-based foods.