• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.327-339
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• 2009

It is known that Korean pregnant women take iron supplements at a higher than the recommended level. This study was designed to provide data on current iron intake levels both from food sources and supplement to better guide iron supplement use during pregnancy. We also explored associations of iron supplement intake levels with various sociocultural factors and pregnancy outcomes. Dietary intakes of 510 pregnant women were assessed by a validated 102-item food frequency questionnaire, and information on types and amounts of nutritional supplement intakes were also attained. While dietary intake levels of most nutrients exceeded the KDRIs (Korea Dietary Reference Intakes: EAR: Estimated Average Requirements), folate fell short of the KDRIs. A total of 428 women (83.9%) reported to take iron supplement. The pregnant women were divided into the three groups (group I: Fe supplement intake ${\le}$ EAR, group II: EAR < Fe supplement intake ${\le}$ 3 times of EAR, group III: 3 times of EAR < Fe supplement intake). The mean dietary intake of iron was 24% of the total iron intake for pregnant women. Iron intake from food was not significantly different among I, II, and III. In case of iron intake from supplements, the most frequent dose (34.1%) was 90-100 mg/day, and the mean iron supplement intake was 362% of the EAR. The study findings showed that those with higher levels of iron supplements had better meal quality measured by NAR (Nutrient Adequacy Ratio) and INQ (Index of Nutrient Quality). In addition iron supplement intake levels were significantly related to age (20s: 66.5 ${\pm}$ 38.6 mg/day, 30s: 77.3 ${\pm}$ 47.8 mg/day, p < 0.0116) and experience of childbirth (1st pregnancy: 70.9 ${\pm}$ 41.2 mg/day, 2nd pregnancy: 64.5 ${\pm}$ 39.5 mg/day, ${\ge}$ 3rd pregnancy: 94.4 ${\pm}$ 63.8 mg/day, p < 0.005). However, no significant difference was found between iron supplement intake levels and various pregnancy outcomes including birth weight, birth height, gestational age, weight gain during pregnancy, and jaundice. It is worrisome that iron intake by supplement use greatly exceeded the EAR, suggesting the need of appropriate guidelines for iron supplement intake during pregnancy. Thus iron overdose from supplements in pregnancy should be considered as a serious condition.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.638-641
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• 2006

Iron is the required microelement supporting life and is the main component of hemoglobin. Thus iron has affinity with exercise capacity. Iron metabolism turbulence induced by exercise is one of causes of hematopoietic hypofunction. Results of the experiment showed that long-term treadmill exercise of progressive loading significantly decreased levels of erythrocyte indexes, serum iron, serum ferritin and significantly increased serum transferrin level. Nutrition supplement could significantly retard the variations, and Exercise +Nutrition group have higher levels of erythrocyte indexes, serum iron, serum ferritin and lower level of serum transferrin than Exercise group. The results indicated that nutrition supplement have function of prevent and cure on iron metabolism turbulence induced by exercise, furthermore significantly enhance hemoglobin level in rats.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.112-119
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• 2002

Objectives : Anemia is the center of interest in every maternity, both during pregnancy and lactation. The oriental postpartum care has one principle : to invigorate Qi and blood greatly. In this study, we seek to confirm that most sufferers of anemia recover under oriental postpartum care. To assure that this study had significance in non-iron supplement, we made a comparative study between oral iron supplement and non-iron supplement groups in oriental postpartum care. Methods : A comparative study was conducted to discern the difference in hemoglobin change between admission and after 2 weeks under the circumstances of 30 oral iron supplemented and 38 non-iron supplemented women who were admitted to the hospital attached to Woosuk University Oriental Medical College from April to August 2001 for postpartum care. Results : The mean hemoglobin level of after 2 weeks was 11.95 mg% (p<0.001). The mean hemoglobin level after 2 weeks was 11.65 mg% and 12.18 mg% in the iron supplemented and non-iron supplemented women respectively. The difference between the two groups was not significant. Conclusions : Oriental postpartum care overcomes anemia significantly in postpartum maternity. This is confirmed significantly under the non-iron supplement.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.729-735
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• 2003

This study was performed to evaluate the effect of iron supplement for 4 weeks on iron status, immunity, and antioxidant status of national female soccer players (n = 25). This study was performed at summer hard training period right before competition. A single blind design was used to divide the subjects into iron-supplement (IS) or placebo group (P). Iron-supplement group was supplemented with iron (40 mg/d) for 4 weeks. The mean age of the subjects was 23.3 $\pm$ 2.5 years old. Mean height and body weight of the subjects were 164.4 $\pm$ 5.7 em and 57.4 $\pm$ 4.6 kg, respectively. The mean carrier as soccer player was 11.0 $\pm$ 2.6 years and mean training time was 7.0 $\pm$ 1.3 hr/day. The mean hemoglobin, hematocrit, total iron binding capacity and ferritin concentrations before iron supplementation were not different between two groups. After 4 weeks of summer training and iron supplementation, serum ferritin level was significantly increased only in IS group after supplementation. Mean corpuscular volume and total iron binding capacity were significantly decreased in both groups. Meanwhile, hemoglobin and red blood cell count were significantly lowered only in placebo group. The IgM concentration increased significantly in both groups, but IgG concentration had increasing tendency only in IS group (p < 0.064). Therefore, iron supplementation during hard training period may be helpful to improve work capacity of the athletes by improving ferritin status and humoral immune responses.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.40 no.8
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• pp.728-735
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• 2007

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of iron-enriched cereal supplement and nutrition education program on nutritional status and life style of children. Elementary school students(n=170) aged of 11 years old at Seoul were participated. Subjects were supplemented with iron-enriched cereal for breakfast and provided with 2 sessions of nutrition education during 3 months. Intake of carbohydrate, iron, sodium, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin $B_1$, vitamin $B_2$, vitamin C, niacin, and folic acid was significantly increased after cereal supplement. Caloric intake was similar to KDRIs during both before and after cereal supplement. There was no improvement on exercise and dietary habits after nutrition education. Male students tended to sleep later, wake up early, and ate snack less than female. Cereal supplement was effective on improving nutritional status, but short-term nutrition education had no effect on modification of life style. Thus, further studies are required to develop long-term education program effective on improving lift style and eating habits in children.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.793-801
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• 1999

The purposes of this study are to assess iron status in mothers and their newborn infants at birth and to analyze the influence of maternal iron status on their newborn babies. Venous bloods samples were drawn from 144 pregnant women just before delivery and cord bloods of their newborn babies were collected immediately after birth for measurement of hemoglobin, hematocrit, serum iron, ferritin, total binding capacity and transferrin saturation. The values of hemoglobin and hematocrit were significantly lower in the mothers(10.9$\pm$1.43g/dl and 33.7$\pm$3.67%) than in their newborn infants(14.7$\pm$1.43g/dl and 45.3$\pm$4.76%)(p<0.0001). At delivery, serum iron levels in cord blood were about twice as high as those in the maternal blood, and serum ferritin levels in the cord blood were about four times higher than those in the maternal blood. The serum ferritin levels of multigravidas were higher than those of primigravidas,. but there was no difference between the serum ferritin levels of their infants. The serum ferritin levels of the mothers and their infants were higher in maternal group with iron supplement regularly than in other maternal group without iron supplement during pregnancy. Among the mothers, 26.4% had a serum ferritin levels below 12ng/ml(i.e. depleted iron stores)and 78.9% had a hemoglobin below 12g/dl(i.e.iron deficient anemia). When the maternal group was classified according to their serum ferritin levels by 9ng/ml, 12ng/dl or 20ng/ml, there was no significant difference in the iron status of their newborn infants among the three groups. The hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels of the mothers were well correlated with those of their babies. The maternal hemoglobin values negatively correlated with infant birth weight. It is possible that the demands of iron of the mother might be increased in the case of a newborn infant of greater size. The results of this study provide useful information regarding establishment of RDA for iron in pregnant women and guidance about the need for iron supplement during pregnancy.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.295-300
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• 2006

Iron bound to heme appears to be more bioavailable than iron salts. A clinical study was performed to investigate the absorption efficiency of heme-iron and iron-salt products available. Heme-iron and nonheme-iron supplements have become available in Korea. We performed iron absorption studies to compare the absorption of heme-iron polypeptide (HIP) products made from digested hemoglobin, produced in Korea (HIPk) and imported from Japan (HIj), with that of iron salts. In the study, 80 subjects were divided into 5 groups (n=56): placebo group; 12 mg glucose, HIPk group; 12 mg iron as HIPk, HIj group; 12 mg iron as HIj, iron-salt group 1; 12 mg of iron as ferrous aminoacetate, and iron-salt group 2; 100 mg iron as ferrous aminoacetate. Changes in serum iron levels were measured at 3 and 5 hours post ingestion. Absorption of iron in HIPk was higher compared to HIj, iron-salt or placebo. There was a significant inverse correlation between low serum iron levels $(<80{\mu}g/dl)$ and iron absorption from HIPk. These results demonstrated that HIPk was more bioavailable, even taken with a meal, and would have potential advantages over iron salt or HIj as an iron supplement. Our results indicate that heme-iron absorption is regulated by iron status through a heme receptor, whereas iron-salt absorption is unregulated.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.303-314
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• 2004

We studied daily micronutrient intake from vitamin-mineral supplements, health-related life style, clinical case of diseases and food frequency of the Korean middle-aged (40-59 yr, n = 404) to compare the characteristics of non-user (n = 270) and user (n = 134) of vitamin-mineral supplements. Rate of supplement use of the middle-aged was 33.2% and there was significant difference in education level (p = 0.0084) and family income (p = 0.0476) of user and nonuser. Smoking habit (p = 0.0844) and drinking frequency (p = 0.0606) tended to be lower in a supplement user than a non-user. The medical history of a case was significantly higher in users (67.9%) than in non-users (44.4%) (p = 0.001), which suggests that medical history is one of the important motivations of supplement use. Supplement users had the medical history of digestive disease (34.1%), anemia (11.0%) and hypertension (9.9%) in order. Vitamin C was the most frequently supplemented nutrient (81.3%) among vitamin-mineral supplement, and the next orders were vitamins E (73.1%), B$_2$(68.7%) and B$_{6}$ (60.4%). Mean intakes of vitamin B$_1$, iron, selenium, vitamin E, and vitamin C from supplement was 4,260%, 4,030%, 1,660% and 1,330% of RDA, respectively. The supplement users tended to consume most food items including milk ＆ milk products (p ＜ 0.01), rice (p ＜ 0.01), grains (p ＜ 0.05) and cookies (p ＜ 0.01) less frequently than non-users. Conclusively, nutrient intake of vitamin B$_1$, iron, selenium, vitamin E, and vitamin C from supplement was excessively high compared to RDA. We suggest that the toxic effect of excessive supplementation should he informed to supplement user and nutritional education should be focused on the optimal supplement dose.e.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.195-200
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• 2006

We surveyed Korean pregnant women who participated in the Maeil mothers' club and factory tour from March to April, 2004 and assessed volunteers' hemoglobin (Hb) levels. The average Hb level of 747 subjects was $11.5{\pm}1.5g/dl$ and anemic subjects were 268 women, 35.9% of total subjects. The ratio of anemic subjects was 42.9% in the first trimester, 43.6% in the second trimester and 29.1 % in the third trimester. About 87.9% of subjects began to take health foods after conception. Seventy nine percent of subjects took iron supplement as one of health foods and 73.8% of them began it in the second trimester. The results of this study showed that health foods were more effective than iron supplement alone in improving the iron status of Korean pregnant women. Therefore, the better improvement effects are expected when pregnant women begin health food-based approaches as early as possible before pregnancy to improve pre-pregnancy iron reserve.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.435-438
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• 2003

Iron required by all organisms is related with diverse biological processes. Most eukaryotes need extra iron to maintain their nutrition balance. However, extra iron supplement gives many problem to solubility in the cells. To increase the bio-availability of iron in cells, yeast was applied to carry the iron with solubility. Selection of yeast mutants with enhanced iron uptake were performed by mutagenesis using the alkylation agent EMS. Eleven mutant strains with enhanced iron uptake were selected by the measurement of iron content with atomic absorption spectrometer. The iron content in mutants was 1.5- to 2.5-fold more than that in wild-type. These mutants could be served as iron-fortified nutrients for food and feed.