Cooking Enhances but the Degree of Ripeness Does Not Affect Provitamin A Carotenoid Bioavailability from Bananas in Mongolian Gerbils
Abstract
Banana is a staple crop in many regions where vitamin A deficiency is prevalent, making it a target for provitamin A biofortification. However, matrix effects may limit provitamin A bioavailability from bananas. The retinol bioefficacies of unripe and ripe bananas (study 1A), unripe high-provitamin A bananas (study 1B), and raw and cooked bananas (study 2) were determined in retinol-depleted Mongolian gerbils (n = 97/study) using positive and negative controls. After feeding a retinol-deficient diet for 6 and 4 wk in studies 1 and 2, respectively, customized diets containing 60, 30, or 15% banana were fed for 17 and 13 d, respectively. In study 1A, the hepatic retinol of the 60% ripe Cavendish group (0.52 ± 0.13 μmol retinol/liver) differed from baseline (0.65 ± 0.15 μmol retinol/liver) and was higher than the negative control group (0.39 ± 0.16 μmol retinol/liver; P
Citation
Bresnahan, K.A.; Arscott, S.A.; Khanna, H.; Arinaitwe, G.; Dale, J.; Tushemereirwe, W.; Mondloch, S.; Tanumihardjo, J.P.; de Moura, F.F.; Tanumihardjo, S.A. Cooking Enhances but the Degree of Ripeness Does Not Affect Provitamin A Carotenoid Bioavailability from Bananas in Mongolian Gerbils. Journal of Nutrition (2012) 142 (12) 2097-2104. [DOI: 10.3945/jn.112.167544]