The Role of the Intestine in Iron Kinetics

作者：Marcel E. Conrad, Lewis R. Weintraub, William H. Crosby · 发表于：Journal of Clinical Investigation · 年份：1964 · DOI：10.1172/jci104982 · 被引用次数：164 · 研究领域：Diet and metabolism studies、Iron Metabolism and Disorders、Muscle metabolism and nutrition

The iron content of the body is small, amount-ing to about 60 parts per million (1). This quan-tity must remain within narrow limits to prevent the development of either siderosis or iron de-ficiency. It has been postulated that the metabolic balance of the body's iron is maintained solely by controlled absorption and that excretion plays a minor role (2). Hahn and his associates pro-posed that the iron content of the intestinal mu-cosa controlled the quantity of iron absorbed by the body (3). More recent views are that the iron content of the gut is unimportant in the regulation of iron metabolism (4). This paper reports a study of the iron content of the intestine and its role in the regulation of iron equilibrium. Methods Male albino rats, Walter Reed Carworth Farms strain, weighing 225 to 275 g were used. The principles of laboratory animal care as promulgated by the National Society for Medical Research were observed. The rats were raised in a pathogen-free environment and housed in galvanized wire cages or plastic metabolic cages. Their diet contained 15 mg of iron per 100 g of dry weight; the average ingestion of iron was estimated to be 2 mg daily. During prolonged excretory studies iron-deficient rats were fed an iron-deficient powdered-milk diet. Iron deficiency was induced 5 days before study by bleeding rats 5 ml, which removed 2.5 mg of hemoglobin iron. Blood was let by insertion of a heparinized capil-lary tube into the medial retro-orbital venous plexus. Rats w...