Abd. Ghani, Nawalyah

Hashim, Normah

Ismail, Maznah

Omar, Hishamuddin

Yim, Hip Seng

Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository

FOR Category Fll 000: Medical and Health SciencesBIOAVAILABILITY OF IRON FROM SPIRULINAPLATENSISMaznah Ismail,Yim Hip Seng, Nawalyah Abd.Ghani,Nonnah Hashim and Hishamudin OmarFaculty of Medicine and Health SciencesUniversiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor,MalaysiaKeywords: iron bioavailability, iron status, spirulina,food supplement, haemoglobin repletion.IntroductionThe prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia remains a majorhealth concern not only in the developing countries but alsoin the developed world as it affects physical and mental de-velopment especially of children. Low bioavailability of ironfrom the diets has been postulated to contribute to this con-dition. Mineral deficiency conditions especially when af-fecting children would be a liability to the growth of the na-tion in terms of future workforce as well as the overall de-velopment of the country especially when the health problemcan be rectified by mineral supplementation. At present allmultiple mineral supplements are chemically produced. Thecurrent opinion is that it is safer to take minerals in the formof food supplements where they occur in their natural form incombination with all of the other nutritive factors such as en-zymes and trace elements for optimum assimilation and bio-logical activity. This project has thus focussed on the possi-ble use of Spirulina platensis as a mineral food supplementand specifically in this study to determine the bioavailabilityof iron from Spirulina an~ hence its effect on the iron statusin vivo.Materials and MethodsCultivation of Spirulina: Spirulina was cultivated at theCentre for Oceanography and Mariculture Studies(COMAS), UPM, Port Dickson. It was harvested by con-tinuous centrifugation and freeze dried to form a concentrate.Its mineral content was determined by AAS. In vivo Study:Fe bioavailability was assessed in vivo by haemoglobin de-pletion - repletion assay. 30 weanling (28-30d) male Spara-gue Dawley rats were made iron deficient by feeding HarlanTeklad Fe-deficeint diet (l1.67±3.51 ~gFe/g) for 28d. Therats were then weight-matched and divided into five equalgroups according to the supplementation treatment of theirdiet; commercial Spirulina (SC) , cultured Spirulina (SP),FeS04 with 10 fold Fe(FS), continued on Fe-deficient diet(CD) and Barastoc Fe-sufficient diet (CF; 101.27 ± 4.14flgFe/g). The preparation of supplement groups (SC & SP)was based on therapeutic dose of 2 mg Fe/kg body wt. Thesupplementation was administered every three days in accor-dance to a report by Viteri et al. (1995). Baseline and intervalreadings of iron status, heamoglobin (Hb), haematocrit (Ht),mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and serum ferritin weredetermined by Hematology Analyzer and Irnx Ferritin Ana-lyzer respectively. Fecal Fe was determined by AAS.Results and DiscussionMineral Composition: The iron content of cultured Spirulina(442.63 ± 92.35 ~glg) was found to be higher than commer-cial Spirulina (126.30 ± 39.58 ~glg). In vivo Study: Thegrowth of the rats was correlated with food intake(r=O.843,p<O.OI). with r values among individual groups rangingfrom 0.571 for group FS to the highest r value of 0.934 forgroup CD. The low correlation value obtained for group FSwas due to the dehydration caused by undesirable taste ofFeS04 which eventually resulted in a decrease of food intakeand body weight. Since the supplemented dose for iron ingroup FS was 10 fold greater, therefore, total iron consump-tion was significantly higher (380-460%) than that of groupsSC and SP (p<O.OI). Meanwhile, SC and SP groups wascomparable in their Fe consumption throughout the supple-mentation phase. At the end of the Fe-deficiency inducingperiod all the rats were successfully made iron deficient withthe mean Hb value being 6.8 ± 0.59 g/dl. Statistical analysisshowed there was no significant difference in pre-supplementation Hb, Ht and MCV values for all experimen-tal groups. Post-supplementation Hb, Ht and MCV forSC,SP,FS and CF groups were significantly higher than pre-supplementation values. Meanwhile, these indices haveshown lower post supplementation values for group CD asthe rats were continuously fed on Fe-deficient diet. ANOVAfor post-supplementation serum ferritin showed no differ-ence between groups SC,SP and FS (p<O.Ol). However,group FS has significantly higher post-supplementation se-rum ferritin than the two control groups, CD & CF (p<O.OS).Therefore these results indicate that the regeneration effi-ciency of Hb synthesis Ht and MCV was comparable be-tween cultured Spirulina, commercial Spirulina and ferroussulphate. However, the supplemented dose of Fe for groupFS was ten times greater, with the actual amount of iron con-·sumed by the group between 380 and 460% and thus Fe-bioavailability from FeS04 was only about one fourth to onefifth at the same serum ferritin level as compared to groupsSP and se,ConclusionsThis study concludes that cultured Spirulina may be used inthe prevention and treatment of iron deficiency anaemia as ithelps in the repletion of haemoglobin in otherwise.iron de-pleted condition. The positive effects could be due to thehigh bioavailability of iron from this source and they werecomparable to that of commercially prepared Spirulina andferrous sulphate supplement which was administered with 10fold higher dosage. Furthermore the cost per capsule of thecommercially prepared Spirulina is similar to that of con-ventional iron supplement but Spirulina in addition to ironalso contain other nutrients.ReferencesViteri, F.E., Liu, X.N., Tolomei, K., and Martin, A. 1995. True ab-sorption and retention of supplemental iron is administered everythree days rather than daily to iron-normal and iron-deficient rats.The Journal of Nutrition. 125: 82-91.Supported by IRPA Grant 06-02-04-0016315

Bioavailability of iron from Spirulina platensis

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Bioavailability of iron from Spirulina platensis

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