Premium
Problems with folacin status with use of orange juice substitutes in a geriatric institution
Author(s) -
Flint Delia M.,
Wahlqvist M. L.,
Prinsley D. M.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of human nutrition and dietetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1365-277X
pISSN - 0952-3871
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-277x.1988.tb00206.x
Subject(s) - orange juice , orange (colour) , medicine , food science , significant difference , biology
An increased range of orange drinks is now available with varying proportions of orange juice. These have begun to appear in institutions for the care of elderly people. With evidence of folacin deficiency in such elderly people, we evaluated the effect of either 100% orange juice or an orange drink (at least 5% juice) on folacin status in 19 institutionalized elderly people over a 13‐week period. Serum folacin increased from 8.5 ± 0.8 to 13.2 ± 0.8 nmol/l ( P < 0.001) in 13 weeks, with 100 ml orange juice daily, but did not change from baseline (8.9 ± 0.8 nmol/l) to 13 weeks (8.5%± 0.7 nmol/l) with orange drink. By 6 weeks the difference between orange juice (11.0 ± 1.0 nmol/l) and orange drink (8.6 ± 0.7 nmol/l) was significant. Thus, not only is the choice of orange drink important, but small regular orange juice supplements can produce a significant increase in biochemical folacin status.