Effect of supplementation with different sources of iron during the recovery of anemic rats

Abstract

Iron (Fe) can be found as two different chemical forms in nature, the ionic form and the heme form, whose main source is blood hemoglobin. Cuba has developed a line of antianemic products from bovine blood such as Trofin®, NeoTrofin® and NeoTrofinC®. These products have demonstrated a higher efficacy than those ones based on ionic Fe. There are experimental evidences of an increase in mineral bioavailability when both chemical forms of Fe are combined. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the antianemic effect and bioavailability of Fe during recovery of anemic rats, supplied with mixtures of heme and ionic iron. Just weaned Sprague-Dawley female rats were supplied for six weeks with a purified diet having low iron content just to make them anemic. The anemic animals were separated in groups of seven rats, each one to receive a supplementation for 14 d with FeSO4 or different mixtures of dry Trofin and FeSO4 in two different ratios. Hemoglobin concentration and Fe status on serum were measured. Hemoglobin regeneration efficiency was calculated from body weight increase and eaten food amount as indicator of mineral bioavailability. It was concludes that supplementation with mixtures of Trofin and FeSO4 had a better antianemic effect and mineral bioavailability than FeSO4 alone.