Effects of Divalent Amino Acids on Iron Absorption

Solutions of each of 10 amino acids or ascorbic acid were mixed with iron and orally administered to rats. Iron was absorbed to a statistically significantly greater extent (p < 0.05) when mixed with asparagine, glycine, serine, or ascorbic acid as compared with a control solution of iron. The largest effects were for asparagine and glycine, which also increased iron absorption to a significantly greater extent (p < 0.001) than did serine or ascorbic acid. No statistically significant increase in iron absorption occurred when any of the other amino acids was mixed with iron. The extent of iron absorption from each test solution, as measured by area under the concentration of iron-59 in the blood-time curve (r2 = 0.0002), and the initial rate of iron absorption for each test solution (r2 = 0.01) showed no correlation with the stability constant of the amino acid-iron complex.