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，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，尤其是肠道健康。最近的研究表明，在大多数成年人中，我们在饮食中摄入过量的铁，而这些铁中的绝大多数从未被我们的身体吸收。相反，这一池铁最终在大肠中，它可以在那里停留几个小时到几天，然后排出体外。特别是最近的研究表明，这种铁池对肠道健康有害，这可能是通过改变通常在大肠中定植的细菌类型来介导的。因此，我们的申请旨在创造一种独特的配方，可用于清除结肠内的有毒铁，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，因此我们建议确定可能能够中和铁的天然药物。一种这样的分子是海藻酸盐，它是海藻衍生的，在整个食品工业中使用，并且具有有效的铁中和特性。因此，这项研究的目的是筛选一大组天然食品代理人，如藻酸盐，希望确定一个分子具有最强的铁中和性能。一旦我们确定了这样的分子，我们希望创造一种配方，确保当人类食用它时，该分子只会在过量铁存在的大肠中变得活跃。该制剂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。如果成功的话，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.