A QUANTITATIVE MODEL FOR PREDICTION OF IRON BIOAVAILABILITY FROM INDIAN MEALS - AN EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY

The major goal of the study was to explore the possibility of developi ng an updated model that integrates the effect of various enhancers an d inhibitors for predicting the potential availability of iron from ty pical Indian vegetarian meals. The interaction effects of four constit uents namely ascorbic acid, citric acid, tannic acid and calcium phosp hate was studied using a standard cereal meal (STD meal) providing 3 m g non-heme iron/250 ml homogenate. Based on the data, a regression equ ation was evolved which was tested for its predictive power as applied to a set of 10 typical Indian meals. Regression analysis of the data revealed that both ascorbate and citrate emerged as equally strong enh ancers while tannate and calcium phosphate demonstrated strong inhibit ory effect on iron availability in the STD meal. Further, when the pre diction equation, generated on the basis of the interaction effect dat a was applied to the typical Indian meals, it showed a high correlatio n coefficient (r = 0.76) between the analysed values for iron availabi lity vs the values computed using the enhancer and inhibitor contents of the meals. Comparison with the only other model available in the li terature namely that of Monsen & Balintfy (1982) revealed that the pre sent model was far better in predicting iron availability from cereal based Indian meals (r = 0.76) than Monsen's model (r = 0.19). The find ings of the present study substantiated the hypothesis that a regressi on model, evolved from a cereal meal, by integrating the effect of enh ancers as well as inhibitors, rather than only enhancers, provides a m ore precise estimate of iron availability from typical Indian meals. A limitation of the model however, was that phytate could not be incorp orated into the equation.