The development and assessment of a PEC based platform for the delivery of dietary iron chelators to the large bowel

铁是一种非常重要的微量营养素，不足为奇的是，体内铁含量低与缺铁和贫血有关。然而，相反，也有证据表明，摄入过多的铁同样对健康有害，尤其是对你的肠道健康。最近的研究表明，在大多数成年人中，我们从饮食中摄入了过量的铁，而这些铁中的绝大多数都不会被我们的身体吸收。相反，这些铁元素最终会进入大肠，在那里停留数小时到数天，然后排泄出去。特别是最近的研究表明，这一铁池对肠道健康有害，这可能是通过改变通常在大肠中定居的细菌类型来介导的。因此，我们的应用程序旨在创造一种独特的配方，可用于清除存在于结肠内的有毒铁池，从而增强肠道健康。这可以通过使用具有已知铁中和特性的实验药物来实现，但由于这些药物可能是有毒的，我们建议寻找可能能够中和铁的天然药物。其中一种分子是海藻酸盐，它是从海藻中提取的，在食品工业中广泛使用，具有强大的铁中和特性。因此，这项研究的目的是筛选大量的天然食品制剂，如海藻酸盐，希望找到一种具有最强铁中和特性的分子。一旦我们确定了这样一种分子我们希望创造一种配方，以确保当人类摄入这种分子时，这种分子只会在过量铁元素所在的大肠中变得活跃。该配方将在人工肠道模型中进行测试，如果成功，我们将对健康志愿者进行研究，以评估其生物活性。如果成功，这可能会导致可用于增强肠道健康的食品的开发。

Iron is a very important micronutrient and unsurprisingly low levels within the body are associated with iron deficiency and anaemia. However, conversely there is also evidence that consuming too much iron is similarly detrimental to health and in particularly the health of your gut. Recent studies have shown that in the majority of adults we consume an excess of iron in our diets and the vast majority of this iron never gets absorbed by our bodies. Instead this pool of iron ends up in the large bowel where it can reside for between hours to days before it is then excreted. In particular recent studies have shown that this pool of iron is detrimental to gut health and this is likely mediated by altering the types of bacteria which normally colonise the large bowel. Thus our application is designed to create a unique formulation which could be used to mop up this pool of toxic iron which resides within the colon and thereby enhance intestinal health. This could be achieved by using experimental drugs with known iron neutralising properties but since these can be toxic we instead propose to identify natural agents which might be able to neutralise iron. One such molecule is alginate which is seaweed derived, used throughout the food industry and which has potent iron neutralising properties. Thus the aim of this study is to screen a large panel of natural food agents like alginate with the hope of identifying a molecule with the strongest iron neutralising properties. Once we identify such a molecule we wish to create a formulation which will ensure that when humans consume it the molecule will only become active in the large bowel where the excess iron resides. This formulation will be tested in an artificial model of the gut and if successful we will conduct a study with healthy volunteers to assess its bioactivity. If successful this could lead to the development of food products which could be used to enhance intestinal health.