Bioavailability of Iron from Moringa-Fortified Snack Bars in Adolescent Girls

Abstract

Background: School-compatible snack may help support scalable strategies for adolescent ID.
Objective: To compare the effect of a randomized controlled trial of daily snack bar fortified with Moringa oleifera leaf powder and ascorbic acid versus an energy-matched unfortified snack bar.
Methods: The draft protocol comprised 100 experimental units/participants -- adolescent girls ages 13-18, who were low iron store but not severely anemic.
Intervention/Testing Period: 12 weeks. Serum ferritin was the primary outcome and other parameters such as hemoglobin, transferrin saturation, soluble transferrin receptor, acceptability, and adherence was assessed. The standard laboratory, clinical, or food-analysis procedures were used and the two-sided tests at α=0.05 were used to determine between-condition differences.
Results: Moringa-fortified snack bars increased serum ferritin from 18.6 ± 6.2 to 31.4 ± 8.1 ng/mL compared with a small rise to 21.0 ± 6.8 ng/mL in controls (p<0.001). The hemoglobin level rose by 0.9 ± 0.6 g/dL, transferrin saturation rose by 6.8 percentage points, and adherence was 90.6%, but biochemical iron excess did not occur in any participants. The direction and magnitude of the dummy findings was consistent within the primary and secondary endpoints and tolerability or assay-quality criteria were acceptable.
Conclusion: The table showed that the daily snack bar fortified with Moringa oleifera leaf powder and ascorbic acid may be helpful in achieving a significant increase in the serum ferritin levels via the food based approach of iron supplementation and ascorbate mediated non-heme iron absorption. These findings are presented only as an example of a complete manuscript development, and prior to submission to scientific publications, should be replaced with ethically obtained and independently verified observations.