When visited at her office for an interview, Neshat Moslehi proudly presents her thesis. The cover immediately catches the eye: it shows a close-up picture of a sparkling rock. "It is photographed by my friend Joren Vos, and quite rare", Moslehi says mysteriously. "It’s called Vivianite, a naturally-occurring multi-mineral containing iron, but also manganese, magnesium, and calcium. I knew it existed, but it took me a while to find it. Ultimately, I bought it from a mineral shop in Heerle." However, it’s pretty appearance wasn’t by any means the only reason to make the rock the star of her PhD. In fact, it played an indispensable role in her research, because it was the source of inspiration from the very beginning.
Hiding iron
During her PhD, Moslehi’s goal was to design a compound which can be used to fortify food products with iron. Iron fortification of food is challenging, because iron tends to interact with the chemicals present in foods, leading to undesirable changes in, for example colour and flavour. The main idea of this project was to ’hide’ iron by embedding it in a less reactive compound, to reduce iron reactivity in foods. And then reveal it once the food is consumed, so that the iron can be absorbed by the body. In her words: "We needed an iron-containing compound with minimum dissolution in the food-relevant pH, and maximum dissolution in gastric and intestinal pH."We all have heard of Popeye, the famous sailorman who boosts his strength by eating a can of spinach
Neshat Moslehi, PhD candidate
Global health risk
Why go through all the trouble to fortify food with iron? When asked, Moslehi brings up the cartoon character Popeye. "Most of us have heard of him", she says. "The famous sailorman who boosts his strength by eating a can of spinach. However, it would have been much more efficient for Popeye to knock back a can of meat. Both spinach and meat contain iron, but the non-heme iron in green leafy vegetables, beans, and nuts is much less absorbed in the body than the heme iron in meat." The growing number of vegetarians and vegans on the one hand, and the lower meat consumption in developing countries on the other, have therefore resulted in iron deficiency being one of the biggest global health risks.Innovative salts
Moslehi indeed succeeded in synthesizing such compounds. Inspired by natural minerals, such as the aforementioned Vivianite, she synthesized multi-mineral pyrophosphate-based salts, which contain iron and a second mineral such as calcium, zinc, or manganese that follows the necessary solubility balances. This means that an advantage of these compounds is the possibility to deliver of a second mineral, along iron at the same time.After synthesizing, the salts were tested for their reactivity in the presence of selected phenolic compounds, such as quercetin, apigenin, and curcumin. These are present in citrus fruits, parsley, and turmeric. The results showed that the salts indeed reacted less with the compounds, because there were only limited changes in colour. In addition, tests in gastric-mimicked conditions were promising: they showed early indications that the iron would be effectively absorbed once it enters the body.
