The research has already led to suggestions for improving the nutritional makeup of infant foods.
Iron deficiency is the world's most prevalent nutrient deficiency.
He is with the agency's U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory in Ithaca, New York. To help correct these deficiencies, Glahn has developed an in vitro laboratory model. Glahn says his system is the first to accurately model in the lab what occurs in the human intestinal tract. It allows food digestion to occur at the same time nutrients are taken up by the Caco-2 cells. To improve our food supply, we must have some measure of how much iron we can expect to actually absorb.