Dietary Molar Ratios of Phytate :Zinc and Millimolar Ratios of Phytate × Calcium:Zinc in South Koreans

Abstract

The zinc nutritional status in south Koreans was established by evaluation of zinc, calcium and phytate intakes, the molar ratio of phytate:zinc, and the millimolar ratio of phytate x calcium:zinc. The intakes of iron and magnesium were also estimated. Sampling was designed so that it was representative of the national population. Two-day food records were used for the calculation of nutrient intakes, using food consumption data from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey ('95NNS) for South Korea. Daily intakes of zinc and calcium were estimated to be 10.1 mg/d and 426.5 mg/d, respectively, and those of iron and magnesium were 15.2 mg/d and 268.0 mg/d, respectively. The estimated daily phytate intake was 1676.6 mg/d. The ratio of phytate:zinc was 15.9 mol/d and that of phytate x calcium:zinc was 168.9 mmol/d. The ratio in millimoles per 4.2 MJ (1000 kcal) of phytate x calcium:zinc was 91.8. The major food groups for zinc intake were meat, poultry and their products (43%), and cereals and grain products (18%). Sixty-two percent of zinc was from animal food sources. Cereal and grain products supplied most of the phytate intake (46%) followed by seasonings, fruits, and legumes and their products. The major food source of phytate was rice (39%). The results of the study raise concern about the suboptimal zinc status in relation to the Western diet.

Phytate intake and molar ratios of phytate to zinc, iron and calcium in the diets of people in China

“…Indian people consume as much as 1560-2500 mg phytate per day (Khokhar et al, 1994). Kwun and Kwon (2000) reported that the phytate intake of South Koreans was 1676.6 mg/day. The daily average phytate intake of people in China was higher than that in Western countries (Harland and Peterson, 1978;Davies, 1982;Torelm and Bruce, 1982;Carnovale et al, 1987;Plaami and Kumpulainen, 1995), and less than that of Korean (Kwun and Kwon, 2000), Indian (Khokhar et al, 1994) and Nigerians people (Harland et al, 1988a).…”

“…Studies on phytate intakes can be found in USA (Harland and Peterson, 1978;Ellis et al, 1982), UK (Wise et al, 1987), Sweden (Torelm and Bruce, 1982), Italy (Carnovale et al, 1987), Napal (Ellis et al, 1987), Turkey (Ersöz et al, 1990), Taiwan (Wang et al, 1992), India (Khokhar et al, 1994) and Korea (Kwun and Kwon, 2000;Joung et al, 2004). In China, with a wide variation in the diets (Wang, 2005), data on phytate intake are lacking (Yang et al, 2002).…”

Contents of Phytic Acid of Various Cereal Crops Produced in Korea

“…Low phytate cultivars may be beneficial to improve the nutritional value of cereals such as minerals (Raboy et al, 2001). Kwun and Kwon (2000) reported the estimated daily phytate intake of the average Korean to be 1,677 mg/day in 1995, 39% of which was from rice (653 mg/day). Soybean products supplied 22% of total daily intake of the phytic acid (373 mg/day).…”

The impact of rapid economic growth and globalization on zinc nutrition in South Korea

“…Assessment of Zn, Ca and phytate intakes and comparison with dietary reference intakes for Koreans The assessment of dietary intakes of Zn, Ca and phytate has been described in a previous study (4) . Briefly, daily Zn and Ca intakes were calculated from various food composition tables, databases and literature values.…”