Do zinc fortified potatoes improve zinc and health status?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Do zinc fortified potatoes improve zinc and health status?
IRAS ID
182479
Contact name
John Beattie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Aberdeen
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 31 days
Research summary
Zinc is important in biology and allows the proper function of proteins in living organisms. Severe zinc deficiency in animals and humans over long periods of time can therefore cause adverse effects. In the UK, the zinc status of most people is adequate, but about 20% of the population, especially adolescents in deprived communities and vegetarians/vegans, are likely marginally zinc deficient. Because potatoes are a favoured food in adolescents and vegetarians/vegans, we have improved the zinc content of Saxon potatoes by biofortification, which involves spraying potato plant leaves with zinc salts. The potato zinc concentration is about 3 times the level in unfortified potatoes of the same variety. This level of zinc can boost the zinc intake of people who are marginally zinc deficient so that they become zinc adequate. Indeed, in rat studies, we have shown that addition of some zinc-biofortified potato to a low zinc diet improves the zinc and health status of the animals. In the present study, we propose to investigate whether the potato biofortification can improve the zinc and health status of volunteers. Because most of the volunteers (healthy adult males) might have normal or variable zinc status at recruitment, we may not see benefits of the potato diets and we shall therefore reduce the zinc intake of all 45 men to 1 mg Zn/d for a period of two weeks prior to feeding 15 randomly selected men the biofortified potato diets (4 mg Zn/d) for two weeks. Zinc and health status will be measured by blood tests before and after zinc depletion and after feeding the potato diets. Results will be compared with data from 15 volunteers eating unfortified potato diets with a daily placebo and 15 volunteers consuming the unfortified potato diets with a zinc supplement (18 mg/d) as a positive control.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
16/NS/0022
Date of REC Opinion
11 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion