ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Biotecnologica 2015 December;27(4):159-62

Copyright © 2015 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Effect of flour enrichment on anemia prevalence in Lorestan province and its probable inefficiency factors

Hassanvand E. ¹, Daraei Garmekhany A. ²

¹ Department of Food Science and Technology, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran; ² Department of Food Science and Technology, Toyserkan Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

AIM: Iron deficiency anemia is emerging as a kind of prevalent nutritional anemia in Iran. Iron deficiency reduces physical and mental performance, impairs growth, increases risk of infectious illnesses and reduces TSH release with consequently decreased thyroid performance etc. In this regard, bread is the main Iranian food. The plan of flour enrichment in mills began nearly one decade ago, so a review of this plan’s efficiency is necessary. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of flour enrichment with iron in the Lorestan province of Iran.
METHODS: In this descriptive study, the value of iron was measured in 150 flour samples from 4 mills in Lorestan province. Five hundred women of child bearing age were selected randomly in order to study iron deficiency prevalence and a CBC experiment was carried out.
RESULTS: Enriched flour samples were assigned to four overall classes based on the value of measured iron. Nearly 70 percent of the selected samples were enriched according to the standard criteria (minimum added iron 30 ppm) and 30 percent of samples were enriched with iron below the minimum recommended. CBC experiment results have shown that 66.6% of people under the age of 20 and 70% of people between 20-50 years-old (that is nearly 70% of women of child-bearing age) are at risk of iron deficiency anemia.
CONCLUSION: The plan of flour enrichment with iron has no significant effect by itself on reducing the prevalence of iron deficiency without considering the way bread is baked and replacing the method of fermentation in provincial bakeries.