Copper absorption from human milk, cow's milk, and infant formulas using a suckling rat model

Journal Article · Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1985 · Am. J. Clin. Nutr.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6185980

Loennerdal, B B; Bell, J G; Keen, C L

Since copper deficiency is known to occur during infancy, it becomes important to assess copper uptake from various infant diets. The authors have investigated the uptake of copper from human milk, cow's milk, cow's milk formulas, cereal/milk formula and soy formula, compensating for the decay of /sup 64/Cu and using the suckling rat as a model. Radiocopper was added to the diet in trace amounts. Ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration, and gel filtration were used to show that the added /sup 64/Cu bound to milk fractions and individual binding compounds in a manner analogous to the distribution of native copper, thus validating the use of extrinsically labeled diets. Labeled diets were intubated into 14-day-old suckling rats. Animals were killed after 6 h and tissues removed and counted. Liver copper uptake was 25% from human milk, 23% from cow's milk formula, 18% from cow's milk, 17% from premature (cow's milk based) infant formula, 17% from cereal/milk formula and 10% from soy formula. These results show that the rat pup model may provide a rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive method to assay bioavailability of copper from infant foods.

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Davis
• OSTI ID: 6185980
• Journal Information: Am. J. Clin. Nutr.; (United States), Vol. 5
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
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TISSUE DISTRIBUTION
UPTAKE
COPPER COMPOUNDS
BIOLOGICAL AVAILABILITY
COWS
LIVER
MILK
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ELECTRON CAPTURE RADIOISOTOPES
FOOD
GLANDS
HOURS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
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MAMMALS
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NUCLEI
ODD-ODD NUCLEI
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