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Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life

The birth iron endowment provides iron for growth in the first months of life. We describe the iron endowment under conditions of low dietary iron supply. Subjects were infants participating in a trial of Vitamin D supplementation from 1 to 9 months. Infants were exclusively breastfed at enrollment...

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Autores principales: Ziegler, Ekhard E., Nelson, Steven E., Jeter, Janice M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4042569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24853888
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6052023
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author Ziegler, Ekhard E.
Nelson, Steven E.
Jeter, Janice M.
author_facet Ziegler, Ekhard E.
Nelson, Steven E.
Jeter, Janice M.
author_sort Ziegler, Ekhard E.
collection PubMed
description The birth iron endowment provides iron for growth in the first months of life. We describe the iron endowment under conditions of low dietary iron supply. Subjects were infants participating in a trial of Vitamin D supplementation from 1 to 9 months. Infants were exclusively breastfed at enrollment but could receive complementary foods from 4 months but not formula. Plasma ferritin (PF) and transferrin receptor (TfR) were determined at 1, 2, 4, 5.5, 7.5, 9 and 12 months. At 1 month PF ranged from 38 to 752 µg/L and was only weakly related to maternal PF. PF declined subsequently and flattened out at 5.5 months. PF of females was significantly higher than PF of males except at 12 months. TfR increased with age and was inversely correlated with PF. PF and TfR tracked strongly until 9 months. Iron deficiency (PF < 10 µg/L) began to appear at 4 months and increased in frequency until 9 months. Infants with ID were born with low iron endowment. We concluded that the birth iron endowment is highly variable in size and a small endowment places infants at risk of iron deficiency before 6 months. Boys have smaller iron endowments and are at greater risk of iron deficiency than girls.
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spelling pubmed-40425692014-06-04 Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life Ziegler, Ekhard E. Nelson, Steven E. Jeter, Janice M. Nutrients Article The birth iron endowment provides iron for growth in the first months of life. We describe the iron endowment under conditions of low dietary iron supply. Subjects were infants participating in a trial of Vitamin D supplementation from 1 to 9 months. Infants were exclusively breastfed at enrollment but could receive complementary foods from 4 months but not formula. Plasma ferritin (PF) and transferrin receptor (TfR) were determined at 1, 2, 4, 5.5, 7.5, 9 and 12 months. At 1 month PF ranged from 38 to 752 µg/L and was only weakly related to maternal PF. PF declined subsequently and flattened out at 5.5 months. PF of females was significantly higher than PF of males except at 12 months. TfR increased with age and was inversely correlated with PF. PF and TfR tracked strongly until 9 months. Iron deficiency (PF < 10 µg/L) began to appear at 4 months and increased in frequency until 9 months. Infants with ID were born with low iron endowment. We concluded that the birth iron endowment is highly variable in size and a small endowment places infants at risk of iron deficiency before 6 months. Boys have smaller iron endowments and are at greater risk of iron deficiency than girls. MDPI 2014-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4042569/ /pubmed/24853888 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6052023 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ziegler, Ekhard E.
Nelson, Steven E.
Jeter, Janice M.
Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title_full Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title_fullStr Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title_full_unstemmed Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title_short Iron Stores of Breastfed Infants during the First Year of Life
title_sort iron stores of breastfed infants during the first year of life
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4042569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24853888
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6052023
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