How the protein deficiency disease Kwashiorkor occurred. Protein deficiency can arise in two basics ways. Firstly it may occur when the diet contains sufficient energy, but not enough proteins. This occurs in some parts of Africa where the staple food (the food that makes up the bulk of the diet) is corn meal (maize), yarm or cassava, all of which are starchy and therefore energy rich but the deficient in protein in some way. Corn meal lacks one of the essential amino acids, tryptophan, without which proteins cannot be made. Protein deficiency is not common in wheat growing areas. A second cause of protein deficiency is lack of sufficient energy in the diet. In this situation the body’s own protein is used as a source of energy as starvation.

In the both types of the protein deficiency, a disease Kwashiorkor can develop. This term was first adopted in 1935 from the Ghanaian word meaning “The disease of the child removed from the breast by the birth of the next one”. Switching the child from a milk diet to a starchy diet results in protein deficiency.
The characteristics appearance of a child suffering from kwashiorkor can be seen so followings are some of the sign and symptoms of the protein deficiency disease Kwashiorkor.