Cold Extrusion but Not Coating Affects Iron Bioavailability from Fortified Rice in Young Women and Is Associated with Modifications in Starch Microstructure and Mineral Retention during Cooking.

Rice can be fortified with the use of hot or cold extrusion or coating, but the nutritional qualities of the resulting rice grains have never been directly compared. Using fortified rice produced by coating or hot or cold extrusion, we compared ) iron and zinc absorption with the use of stable isotopes, ) iron and zinc retention during cooking, and ) starch microstructure. We conducted 2 studies in young women: in study 1 [ = 19; mean ± SD age: 26.

Cofortification of ferric pyrophosphate and citric acid/trisodium citrate into extruded rice grains doubles iron bioavailability through in situ generation of soluble ferric pyrophosphate citrate complexes.

Background: Iron fortification of rice is a promising strategy for improving iron nutrition. However, it is technically challenging because rice is consumed as intact grains, and ferric pyrophosphate (FePP), which is usually used for rice fortification, has low bioavailability.

Objective: We investigated whether the addition of a citric acid/trisodium citrate (CA/TSC) mixture before extrusion increases iron absorption in humans from FePP-fortified extruded rice grains.

Advances in inhaled technologies: understanding the therapeutic challenge, predicting clinical performance, and designing the optimal inhaled product.

Inhaled medicines are designed mainly to provide safe and efficacious treatment of respiratory diseases, offering the potential advantages of targeted drug delivery such as reduced onset time and increased therapeutic ratio. However, as a flipside of targeted drug delivery, drug levels in the relevant effect compartment cannot be easily assessed. In combination with technical challenges associated with aerosolizing and administering an inhaled medicine, this renders inhalation product development demanding in the regulatory aspect as well.

Oil powders and gels from particle-stabilized emulsions.

We report on the use of silica particle-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions as a template for the preparation of oil powders and gels obtained in a single step by either slow or rapid evaporation of water using freeze-drying or spray-drying, respectively. Using olive oil and partially hydrophobic fumed silica nanoparticles, an oil powder containing nearly 90 wt % oil can be formed by spray-drying, which shows no sign of oil leakage over several months. Upon slow evaporation of water by freeze-drying, a transparent oil gel with oil content as high as 98 wt % can be formed, in which the silica particles form a space-filling network thickening the oil.