Elsevier

Nutrition

Volume 25, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 20-24
Nutrition

Applied nutritional investigation
Iron absorption from meat pate fortified with ferric pyrophosphate in iron-deficient women

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2008.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

Preventing iron deficiency has been a main target of the World Health Organization since 1992. Difficulties to reach dietary recommended iron intakes and to enhance iron absorption should be overcome. We compared in iron-deficient women the bioavailability of iron of three meat pate products enriched with ferrous sulfate, ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes, or ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes plus a hemoglobin-based meat pigment.

Methods

Seventeen women with low iron stores (ferritin <30 μg/L) took part in a three-way, randomized, crossover, double-blind postprandial intervention. Test meals consisted of 80 g of the three different enriched meat pate products, which were spread on two slices of white bread. The pate composition was 13.5 g of protein/100 g, 30 g of fat/100 g (49% monounsaturated fatty acids, 35% saturated fatty acids, 16% polyunsaturated fatty acids), 1 g of carbohydrates/100 g, and 19 mg of total iron (including 15 mg of iron from the test fortificants). Blood samples were taken at baseline and each hour for 6 h after eating the meal and serum iron was determined.

Results

Serum iron concentration evolution during the postprandial study was similar with the three meals, and maximum concentrations were obtained between hours 2 and 4. The effect of type of fortificant was not significant.

Conclusion

Consumption of meat pate fortified with ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes can be part of a dietary strategy for preventing iron deficiency in humans. The addition of larger amounts of a meat pigment rich in heme iron should be further studied.

Introduction

Iron deficiency anemia is one of the most important nutritional deficiencies, and its prevention has been a main target for the World Health Organization since 1992 [1]. Iron deficiency anemia is considered “a public health condition of epidemic proportions,” with children and women being at-risk populations. In developing countries 52% of women are estimated to have iron deficiency and 22% in developed countries [2], [3]. Iron deficiency affects more people than any other condition in the world [2].

Because dietary recommended iron intake is difficult to achieve from food alone, strategies for preventing iron deficiency have focused on food fortification with iron salts, mainly cereal products such as rice, flours, and bread [4], [5], [6], [7], although an effective iron fortification of food remains a challenge. Ideal iron fortificants should permit supplementing high doses of iron in food without changing their physical, chemical, or sensory properties [8], allow appropriate food processing, and from a consumer's point of view be easily and effectively absorbed. Recently, the most studied iron fortificants have been ferrous bis-glycinate [5], [9], ferrous fumarate [4], elemental iron [10], [11], ferrous lactate [12], and ferric pyrophosphate [8], [13], [14], [15], [16]. Ferric pyrophosphate produces neither color nor palatability changes.

The use of meat-based products as vehicles for iron fortification is an unexplored pathway in iron deficiency prevention strategies. An important advantage is the natural content of heme iron and the presence of the “meat factor,” a well-known enhancer of iron absorption [17], [18], [19].

Fortificants made from hemoglobin have also been studied, because they contain almost exclusively heme iron, which is well absorbed and improves the rate of iron absorption in rats and humans from the common iron pool in the gut [20], [21]. Blood pigments containing heme iron are widely used in the meat industry, but their potential enhancing effect of iron absorption has not been explored yet.

Meat pate is a ready-to-eat spreadable product consumed by different population groups. It is an excellent source of highly bioavailable iron due to its content in heme iron, animal protein [22], and saturated fat [23]; therefore, it may be an adequate matrix for iron fortification. In a recent study in rats our group compared the relative iron absorption from two forms of iron, ferrous gluconate and ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes (Lipofer, Lipofoods, Gavá, Barcelona, Spain.), when used as fortificants in meat pate, and observed that iron bioavailability was similar from both sources [15].

The present work compared the iron bioavailability in young iron-deficient women of meat pate products enriched with ferrous sulfate, ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes, or ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes plus a hemoglobin-based meat pigment.

Section snippets

Study design

This study was approved by the clinical research ethics committee of the Hospital Clinico San Carlos and the ethics committee of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (Madrid, Spain).

The study was a three-way, randomized, crossover, double-blind postprandial intervention.

Volunteer recruitment was carried out through advertisements in the Complutense University campus and advertising in Web pages of nutritional interest.

Twenty healthy, non-smoking, non-pregnant, non-anemic (hemoglobin >110

Results

Hematologic values at the beginning of the study corresponding to the 17 volunteers are listed in Table 1.

No significant differences were observed in serum iron concentration during the 6-h postprandial study due to the type of pate consumed and there was no interaction between the type of meal and time (Fig. 1). The time influence was significant (P = 0.005). Serum iron concentration increased steadily in hours 1 and 2 after eating the meals (P = 0.001, compared with basal values and between

Discussion

The use of serum iron increases is a feasible and reliable method to determine iron absorption that has been recently validated [26], [27], [28].

Our data of serum iron concentration at time 0 (baseline) are in accordance with reported values [26], [29], [30], [31], [32]. The evolution of serum iron concentration is in agreement with previous studies [31], [32]. Ekenved et al. [31] reported a maximum serum iron increase of 12 μmol/L 3 to 4 h after consuming a labeled meal containing 25 mg of 59

Conclusions

Consumption of pate fortified with ferric pyrophosphate encapsulated in liposomes can be part of a dietary strategy for preventing iron deficiency in humans. Long-term studies in which this pate is part of the usual diet are needed to confirm benefits in populations at risk of iron deficiency anemia, although the possible additional effects of adding a meat pigment rich in heme iron should be further studied.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the volunteers for their participation. They also thank Laura Barrios (Informatics and Statistics Service, Spanish Council for Scientific Research) for her statistical advice, and Monica Miquel (Nutrition Division, La Piara SA) for technical advice.

References (36)

  • M. Hoppe et al.

    Validation of the clinical approach of using the induced serum iron increase after 1h as a measure of iron absorption

    Clin Nutr

    (2006)
  • B.E. Statland et al.

    Variation of serum iron concentration in young healthy men: within-day and day-to-day changes

    Clin Biochem

    (1976)
  • D. Moretti et al.

    Iron status and food matrix strongly affect the relative bioavailability of ferric pyrophosphate in humans

    Am J Clin Nutr

    (2006)
  • The prevalence of anaemia in women: a tabulation of available information. Document WHO/NUT/MCM/92.2

    (1992)
  • Iron deficiency anaemia

  • Iron deficiency anaemia: assessment, prevention and controlA guide for programme managers. Document WHO/NHD/01.3

    (2001)
  • M. Hernández et al.

    Iron bioavailability and utilization in rats are lower from lime-treated corn flour than from wheat flour when they are fortified with different sources of iron

    J Nutr

    (2003)
  • W. Kloots et al.

    In vitro iron availability from iron-fortified whole-grain wheat flour

    J Agric Food Chem

    (2004)
  • Cited by (35)

    • Recovering heavy metals from electroplating wastewater and their conversion into Zn<inf>2</inf>Cr-layered double hydroxide (LDH) for pyrophosphate removal from industrial wastewater

      2021, Chemosphere
      Citation Excerpt :

      Normally people acquire iron, the essential element in hemoglobin, from their food intake. The food supplement product is used to treat iron deficiency in people, who undertake dialysis, to treat their chronic kidney disease (Navas-Carretero et al., 2009). In metal-finishing industries, the same anion is utilized as a metal ligand (Ammar et al., 1989; Lačnjevac et al., 2012).

    • Iron bioavailability from food fortification to precision nutrition. A review

      2019, Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies
    • Improvement of the Functional and Healthy Properties of Meat Products

      2018, Food Quality: Balancing Health and Disease: Volume 13
    • Iron enrichment of whole potato tuber by vacuum impregnation

      2014, LWT
      Citation Excerpt :

      Ferric pyrophosphate was used for iron fortification in this study; it can be used as a food additive to prevent iron deficiency in humans without colour and palatability changes (Hurrell, 2002; IMNA, 2004; Navas-Carretero, Pérez-Granados, Sarriá, & Vaquero, 2009; Zimmermann & Hurrell, 2007). However, this salt is hardly soluble in water (Navas-Carretero et al., 2009), and a maximum concentration of 0.4 g/100 g (Kishi, 1972) was used in this study. The mass ratio of the solution to the potato of 3% W/W was used to ensure adequate immersion and minimize the dilution effect (leaching of intercellular sap) on the concentration of VI solution (Sormani, Maffi, Bertolo, & Torreggiani, 1999).

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    This study was supported by La Piara SA and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. La Piara SA provided the iron-fortified pate test meals. S. Navas-Carretero was granted by a Comunidad de Madrid–European Social Fund FPI fellowship.

    View full text