Status and Future DevelopmentsInvolving Plant Iron In Animal andHuman Nutrition
2006
Iron is an essential nutrient for humans and other animals, and must be
consumed in adequate amounts to ensure proper growth and development, as
well as good health of the organism. Dietary sources of iron can be divided
into two types: non-heme iron, mostly provided by plant foods, and heme iron,
present in animal foods. Heme iron intake is usually low for the majority of
humans in many developing countries because of the high cost of animal
products or due to cultural constraints concerning these foods. Heme iron
intake also is low in most livestock, whose major source of dietary iron comes
from forages and cereal crops. For these reasons, both humans and animals
rely on plants as an important source of dietary iron. However, the iron
concentration of plant foods varies greatly, and low concentrations in some
common food sources make it difficult for humans and animals to meet daily
dietary requirements when these foods are consumed in suggested amounts.
Additionally, certain food components, such as phytate or tannins, can lower
the bioavailablity of the iron that is in plant foods, thereby lowering its
effective concentration even more. In order to improve the iron nutritional
value of crop plants and consequently to improve human and animal health,
several strategies are being utilized by plant scientists. These include: cultivar
evaluation, plant breeding and marker-assisted selection, alteration of
pathways of iron metabolism, and modification of iron bioavailability. In this
review, we present the role that plant iron plays in the diets of humans and
other animals, and discuss the strategies that can be employed to improve our
plant-based food supply.
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