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Mineral content and in vitro iron bioavailability in seaweeds (1042.7)
Author(s) -
Dunn Michael,
Flores Shireen,
Dobbs Joannie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.1042.7
Subject(s) - bioavailability , spinach , chemistry , food science , iron deficiency , digestion (alchemy) , environmental chemistry , biology , biochemistry , chromatography , anemia , medicine , bioinformatics
Iron (Fe) deficiency remains a public health problem despite large‐scale intervention programs. Deficiency is often due to low iron intake and/or bioavailability, especially in plant‐based diets. With the Dietary Guidelines recommending a shift toward plant‐based diets, there is increased need to identify plant foods that are good sources of iron. Seaweeds are known to be rich in iron, but its bioavailability is poorly understood. Our objective was to evaluate the quality of seaweeds as an iron source by comparing their iron content and bioavailability to spinach. Seaweeds were obtained from commercial sources. Mineral assay by ICP‐ES showed that 10 of 13 seaweeds analyzed contained more Fe/g dry matter (DM) than spinach. Iron content in the seaweeds ranged from 73 to 3490 ug/g DM compared to 166 ug/g DM in spinach. Because of the high Fe content, most seaweeds could be considered good sources of iron based on a 10 g DM serving, e.g. 100% of the Daily Value of iron could be obtained from just 5.2 g of dulse powder, 2.3 g of dried sea lettuce, or 6 g of dried nori (one sheet). However, despite their high Fe content, bioavailability studies using the in vitro digestion/Caco‐2 cell model indicated that many seaweeds do not provide more bioavailable Fe per g DM than spinach. This was due to low Fe absorption efficiencies in the seaweeds. Exceptions were nori and sea lettuce which provided 3 and 5‐fold more bioavailable Fe per g DM than spinach, respectively. The higher bioavailability resulted from a combination of higher absorption efficiencies and higher Fe contents than spinach. In addition, vitamin C increased Fe bioavailability in these two seaweeds by over 100%. Some seaweed samples were found to contain high levels of aluminum (2 mg/g DM), arsenic (66 ug/g DM), or manganese (500 ug/g DM). The level of these contaminants should be considered when recommending seaweeds for regular consumption. We conclude that certain seaweeds could be good sources of iron provided that levels of potentially toxic minerals are low. Grant Funding Source : Supported by USDA/Hatch HAW000279‐H