Trial reportThe Journal of nutrition2022
Iron Bioavailability from Infant Cereals Containing Whole Grains and Pulses: A Stable Isotope Study in Malawian Children.
Trial report in The Journal of nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Isotopically Measured Iron Absorption in Infants and Children Under 2 Years.Nutrients · 2024Pooled it
- Trial
- Associations between intakes of food groups recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and iron status in subsets of the United States population: a cross-sectional study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Article
- Iron bioaccessibility in raw and cooked foods in vitro using fecal inocula from children and adults.Food chemistry: X · 2025Article
- Impact of Fortified Whole Grain Infant Cereal on the Nutrient Density of the Diet in Brazil, the UAE, and the USA: A Dietary Modeling Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Sustainable diets: where from and where to?Journal of nutritional science · 2025Review
- Nutritional Facts and Health/Nutrition Claims of Commercial Plant-Based Infant Foods: Where Do We Stand?Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCompared with infant cereals based on refined grains, an infant cereal containing whole grains (WGs) and pulses with adequate amounts of ascorbic acid to protect against absorption inhibitors could be a healthier source of well-absorbed iron. However, iron absorption from such cereals is uncertain.
objectiveWe measured iron bioavailability from ferrous fumarate (Fefum) added to commercial infant cereals containing 1) refined wheat flour (reference meal), 2) WG wheat and lentil flour (WG-wheat-lentil), 3) WG wheat and chickpea flour (WG-wheat-chickpeas), and 4) WG oat flour (WG-oat) and from ferrous bisglycinate (FeBG) added to the same oat-based cereal (WG-oat-FeBG).
methodsIn a prospective, single-blinded randomized crossover study, 6- to 14-mo-old Malawian children (n = 30) consumed 25-g servings of all 5 test meals containing 2.25 mg stable isotope-labeled iron and 13.5 mg ascorbic acid. Fractional iron absorption (FIA) was assessed by erythrocyte incorporation of isotopes after 14 d. Comparisons were made using linear mixed models.
resultsSeventy percent of the children were anemic and 67% were iron deficient. Geometric mean FIA percentages (-SD, +SD) from the cereals were as follows: 1) refined wheat, 12.1 (4.8, 30.6); 2) WG-wheat-lentil, 15.8 (6.6, 37.6); 3) WG-wheat-chickpeas, 12.8 (5.5, 29.8); and 4) WG-oat, 9.2 (3.9, 21.5) and 7.4 (2.9, 18.9) from WG-oat-FeBG. Meal predicted FIA (P ≤ 0.001), whereas in pairwise comparisons, only WG-oat-FeBG was significantly different compared with the refined wheat meal (P = 0.02). In addition, FIAs from WG-wheat-lentil and WG-wheat-chickpeas were significantly higher than from WG-oat (P = 0.002 and P = 0.04, respectively) and WG-oat-FeBG (P < 0.001 and P = 0.004, respectively).
conclusionIn Malawian children, when given with ascorbic acid at a molar ratio of 2:1, iron bioavailability from Fefum-fortified infant cereals containing WG wheat and pulses is ≈13-15%, whereas that from FeBG- and Fefum-fortified infant cereals based on WG oats is ≈7-9%.
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