Iron Absorption and Metabolism

Biological availability in animals of iron from common dietary sources

“…Influence of Ascorbic Acid and Vitamin E. Many workers have reported that ascorbic acid improves the absorption and utilization of iron (Apte and Venkatachalam, 1965;Banerjee and Chakrabarty, 1965;Brise and Hallberg, 1962;Greenberg et al, 1957;McCurdy and Dern, 1968). Brise and Hallberg (1962) showed that the effect was in the digestive tract, and that intravenous ascorbic acid had no effect.…”

“…mg Fe/kg from FeSO.•, relative biological value = 100 X----mg Fe/kg from sample to give equal curative effect. Calculations of the actual utilization of iron for the formation of new hemoglobin were made on the assumption that 6.7 % of the body weight of the rat was blood, and that hemoglobin contained 3.35 mg iron per g (Greenberg et al, 1957). Various groups, on levels of supplemental iron between 5 and 20 mg per kg of diet, furnished by FeS04.7H20 and corrected for the response to iron in the basal diet, utilized from 45 to 51 % of the iron supplied for the formation of new hemoglobin.…”

“…Food sources of iron are less well utilized than many inorganic iron salts (Hussain et al, 1965;Narula and Wadsworth, 1968;Underwood, 1962). Many factors are reported to influence the absorption of dietary iron (Brise, 1962;Brise and Hallberg, 1962;British Ministry of Health, 1968;Greenberg et al, 1957;Greenberger and Ruppert, 1966;Herndon et al, 1958;Kaufman et al, 1966;Reddy et al, 1965;Smith and Medlicott, 1944;Tucker etal., 1957).…”

Evaluation of calcium, phosphorus, and selected trace mineral status in commercially available dry foods formulated for dogs

“…64 Conversely, ascorbic acid was shown to effectively increase nonheme iron absorption. 65 The amino acid composition of a diet also may influence mineral bioavailability. For example, cysteine, histidine, and lysine form tridentate chelates with iron, thus increasing iron absorption.…”

Effect of gallic (3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic) acid on iron availability

“…A variety of food constituents, including dietary protein (Coons, 1964), ascorbic acid (Brise and Hallberg, 1962), and vitamin E (Greenberg et al, 1957) have been reported to improve the absorption and utilization of iron, although some of the findings with the vitamins apparently are controversial (Chaney and Barnhart, 1964).…”