Manganese nutrition of the neonate is poorly understood, due in part to a paucity of information on the amount and availability of manganese in infant foods. We have developed a suckling pup model to assess the uptake of manganese from fluid diets by using extrinsic labeling. Human milk, cow milk and infant formulas were fed by intubation to fasted rat pups and adults. Rats were killed after varying time periods, and tissues were removed and counted. A period of 6 h was found to be adequate to allow for stomach emptying while limiting tissue redistribution; 24 h was found to reflect pup manganese retention. From human milk, manganese retention was highest (greater than or equal to 80%) in pups less than or equal to 15 days of age; in older pups average retention decreased to 40%. Using d 14 pups to assess relative Mn uptake from diets, wholebody Mn uptake was highest from cow milk (approximately 89%); uptake from human and cow milk formula was similar (approximately 80%) whereas it was lower from soy formula (approximately 60%). These findings suggest that bioavailability of Mn from infant diets is very high during the suckling period. Since most formulas contain considerably more manganese than is found in human milk, Mn deficiency may be less of a concern than possible toxicity from formulas.
Low zinc bioavailability from soy formula may be the result of the formula's phytate content. We assessed the effect of phytate removal from soy formula on Zn absorption using infant rhesus monkeys and suckling rat pups as animal models. Zn absorption in monkeys, as determined by whole-body counting, was 65% from human milk, 54% from monkey milk, 60% from whey-predominant formula, 46% from casein-predominant formula, and only 27% from conventional soy formula (0.621 mmol phytate/L). In contrast, Zn absorption from dephytinized soy formula (0.067 mmol phytate/L) was 45%. In suckling rats, Zn absorption from conventional soy formula was only 16% vs 47% from dephytinized soy formula. Phytate concentration in a variety of experimental soy formulas was inversely correlated to Zn absorption. These results suggest that the low bioavailability of Zn from soy formula is a function of its phytate concentration and can be overcome by the removal of phytate.
Since copper deficiency is known to occur during infancy, it becomes important to assess copper uptake from various infant diets. We have investigated the uptake of copper from human milk, cow's milk, cow's milk formulas, cereal/milk formula and soy formula, compensating for the decay of 64Cu and using the suckling rat as a model. Radiocopper was added to the diet in trace amounts. Ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration, and gel filtration were used to show that the added 64Cu bound to milk fractions and individual binding compounds in a manner analogous to the distribution of native copper, thus validating the use of extrinsically labeled diets. Labeled diets were intubated into 14-day-old suckling rats. Animals were killed after 6 h and tissues removed and counted. Liver copper uptake was 25% from human milk, 23% from cow's milk formula, 18% from cow's milk, 17% from premature (cow's milk based) infant formula, 17% from cereal/milk formula and 10% from soy formula. These results show that the rat pup model may provide a rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive method to assay bioavailability of copper from infant foods.
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