Consuming Iron Biofortified Beans Increases Iron Status in Rwandan Women after 128 Days in a Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial

Haas, Jere D.; Luna, Sarah; Lung’aho, Mercy; Wenger, Michael J.; Murray‐Kolb, Laura E.; Beebe, Stephen E.; Gahutu, Jean Bosco; Egli, Ines

doi:10.3945/jn.115.224741

Cited by 167 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This target value for beans assumes that Fe bioavailability remains the same and was calculated to provide a nutritionally significant increase in the amount of bioavailable Fe. The models of this study demonstrate that for the 2 out of the 3 bean studies, this amount of Fe did indeed provide nutritional benefit, which is in agreement with the corresponding human efficacy studies [23,24,25,26,105]. In addition, these screening tools also have the capacity to provide a fast and cost-effective monitoring of Fe biofortified crops once they are released to farmers and dispersed into the food system.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

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The Combined Application of the Caco-2 Cell Bioassay Coupled with In Vivo (Gallus gallus) Feeding Trial Represents an Effective Approach to Predicting Fe Bioavailability in Humans

2016

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Research methods that predict Fe bioavailability for humans can be extremely useful in evaluating food fortification strategies, developing Fe-biofortified enhanced staple food crops and assessing the Fe bioavailability of meal plans that include such crops. In this review, research from four recent poultry (Gallus gallus) feeding trials coupled with in vitro analyses of Fe-biofortified crops will be compared to the parallel human efficacy studies which used the same varieties and harvests of the Fe-biofortified crops. Similar to the human studies, these trials were aimed to assess the potential effects of regular consumption of these enhanced staple crops on maintenance or improvement of iron status. The results demonstrate a strong agreement between the in vitro/in vivo screening approach and the parallel human studies. These observations therefore indicate that the in vitro/Caco-2 cell and Gallus gallus models can be integral tools to develop varieties of staple food crops and predict their effect on iron status in humans. The cost-effectiveness of this approach also means that it can be used to monitor the nutritional stability of the Fe-biofortified crop once a variety has released and integrated into the food system. These screening tools therefore represent a significant advancement to the field for crop development and can be applied to ensure the sustainability of the biofortification approach.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Data from four trials (3 bean and 1 pearl millet) using the above-mentioned screening tools is discussed and analyzed relative to the parallel human efficacy studies [11,15,16,17,23,24,25]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Combined Application of the Caco-2 Cell Bioassay Coupled with In Vivo (Gallus gallus) Feeding Trial Represents an Effective Approach to Predicting Fe Bioavailability in Humans

2016

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“…An efficacy study showed that women between the ages of 18 and 27 who consumed biofortified beans, exhibited increases in hemoglobin and total body iron levels [14]. Participants in this double-blind randomized efficacy trial consumed between 150-175 grams of cooked beans for lunch and dinner for 18 weeks.…”

Section: Demonstrating Nutritional Efficacy and Consumer Acceptancementioning

confidence: 99%

Iron beans in Rwanda: Crop development and delivery experience

Mulambu¹

2017

AJFAND

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HarvestPlus and its partners have successfully developed and delivered iron bean varieties to more than one million farming households in Rwanda, DRC, and Uganda to help combat the adverse health effects of iron deficiency widespread in these countries. Focusing primarily on Rwanda, this chapter summarizes the country, nutritional and consumer background, crop development, release, and delivery of iron bean varieties and synthesizes lessons learned and future challenges.

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“…In an efficacy feeding trial of iron-biofortified beans, 195 iron-depleted (serum ferritin <20.0 µg/L) Rwandese university women were randomized to consume ironbiofortified beans or control beans daily for 18 weeks [24]. At baseline, 37% were anemic (Hb<120 g/L), 86% were iron deficient (serum ferritin <15.0 µg/L), and 55% had negative body iron stores.…”

Section: Beansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy of iron-biofortified crops

Boy¹,

Haas²,

Petry³

et al. 2017

AJFAND

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Biofortification aims to increase the content of micronutrients in staple crops without sacrificing agronomic yield, making the new varieties attractive to farmers. Food staples that provide a major energy supply in low-and middle-income populations are the primary focus. The low genetic variability of iron in the germplasm of most cereal grains is a major obstacle on the path towards nutritional impact with these crops, which is solvable only by turning to transgenic approaches. However, biofortified varieties of common beans and pearl millet have been developed successfully and made available with iron contents as high as 100 mg/kg and 80 mg/kg, respectively, two to five times greater than the levels in the regular varieties. This brief review summarizes the research to date on the bioavailability and efficacy of iron-biofortified crops, highlights their potential and limitations, and discusses the way forward with multiple biofortified crop approaches suitable for diverse cultures and socio-economic milieu. Like post-harvest iron fortification, these biofortified combinations might provide enough iron to meet the additional iron needs of many iron deficient women and children that are not covered at present by their traditional diets. BIOFORTIFICATION OF STAPLE CROPS WITH IRONThe staple crops which have shown the most potential to increase dietary iron intake through traditional or selective plant breeding are common beans, pearl millet, cowpea, chickpea, pigeon pea, and lentils. Plant breeders have successfully developed varieties of these common staples with iron content two to five times higher than typical commercial varieties. Even considering the low iron bioavailability from these staples due to their high phytic acid (PA) content, it has been estimated that the higher iron content in these biofortified pulses and pearl millet can provide an additional 20 to 30% of the estimated average iron requirement for non-pregnant, non-lactating women of reproductive age, and children three to six years of age who consume these as staples [1]. Careful testing of these varieties is underway so that they can ultimately be introduced into food systems with claims of nutritional superiority and agronomic competitiveness.Before new biofortified varieties are released to farmers, their ability to improve iron status in at-risk populations must be demonstrated initially through well-designed and implemented, randomized controlled efficacy trials, and ideally also under market conditions via effectiveness studies. Until now, only three iron-biofortified staple foods, rice (in the Philippines), beans (in Rwanda), and pearl millet (in India), have been tested for nutritional efficacy, and two of these (biofortified beans and pearl millet) have been tested for iron bioavailability. Given the relatively short time that biofortification has been pursued as an intervention strategy, no effectiveness trials have yet been completed for iron-biofortified crops. Bioavailability of Iron-biofortified Staple Foods: Evidence ...

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Consuming Iron Biofortified Beans Increases Iron Status in Rwandan Women after 128 Days in a Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial

Abstract: The consumption of iron-biofortified beans significantly improved iron status in Rwandan women. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01594359.

Cited by 167 publications

References 18 publications

The Combined Application of the Caco-2 Cell Bioassay Coupled with In Vivo (Gallus gallus) Feeding Trial Represents an Effective Approach to Predicting Fe Bioavailability in Humans

The Combined Application of the Caco-2 Cell Bioassay Coupled with In Vivo (Gallus gallus) Feeding Trial Represents an Effective Approach to Predicting Fe Bioavailability in Humans

Iron beans in Rwanda: Crop development and delivery experience

Efficacy of iron-biofortified crops

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