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Estimation of iron absorption in humans using compartmental modelling

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate whether a compartmental model could estimate iron absorption as accurately as the well-validated technique of plasma area under the curve using labelled test meals.

Design: The study is a randomised cross-sectional intervention.

Setting: The study was carried out at the Human Nutrition Unit at the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK.

Subjects: A total of nine female volunteers, aged 33±8 y.

Interventions: Volunteers were given an oral dose (approximately 5 mg) of Fe-57 as iron sulphate in an orange juice test drink and simultaneously infused Fe-58 (approximately 200 μg) as iron citrate over 90 min. Multiple blood samples were taken for the following 6 h. The samples were analysed by mass spectrometry and iron absorption was estimated using a mathematical model based on the appearance of Fe isotopes in plasma and the area under the curve technique.

Results: The geometric mean (−1 s.d., +1 s.d.) absorption of the model estimate is 16% (9, 31) and the area under curve estimate is 18% (8, 29).

Conclusions: Results indicate that a compartmental model can be used to estimate labelled iron absorption although it is unlikely that this new method will be used in favour of an existing one. Further studies are now needed with unlabelled iron to assess whether the technique could have application in the assessment of total (haem+nonhaem) iron absorption from food.

Sponsorship: European Union Marie Curie Fellowship and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank John Eagles and Jurian Hoogewerff for processing the samples on the mass spectrometer and Treasa Nic Suibhne, Fiona O'Neill and Gosia Newman for help in the laboratory. Sources of support: Beatriz Sarria was funded by a European Union Marie Curie Fellowship. The other authors are funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK.

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Correspondence to J R Dainty.

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Guarantor: JR Dainty.

Contributors: BS was responsible for volunteer recruitment, running the experiments, processing the samples in preparation for mass spectrometry and writing part of the manuscript. JRD was responsible for study design, all mathematical analysis and writing the remainder of the manuscript. TEF and SJF-T were responsible for study design.

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Sarria, B., Dainty, J., Fox, T. et al. Estimation of iron absorption in humans using compartmental modelling. Eur J Clin Nutr 59, 142–144 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602030

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