Effect Of Micronutrients Supplementation On Antioxidative Activity And Immuine Function In Pregnant Women And Middle-aged And Elderly People

Although there is a rising of living standards, the intake of vitamins and minerals of large parts of the population are marginally adequate, or even clearly deficient, especially pregnant women and middle-aged and elderly people, who are in special physiological status have higer risk of malnutrition. It’s proved that adequate intakes of vitamins and trace elements are required for regulating oxidative stress and the immune system to function efficiently. During pregnancy, as the placenta matures, its vascular exposes to high maternal oxygen partial pressure and its abundant mitochondrial mass favors the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). So, the oxidative stress increases and immune function is damaged. With age, the antioxidative activity decreases and oxidative damage exacerbates. Therefore, micronutrients supplementation can improve nutrition status and promote health. This study chose the above two population as subjects, and investigated the improvement in antioxidative activity and immune function after supplementation with iron, folic acid, retinol or vitamin E.First,166 pregnant women (12-24w gestation) were randomized into 4 groups according to the Hb and serum ferritin levels. Erythrocytes of each group were collected and erythrocyte membrane was prepared. Indicators including SOD, MDA and fliudity of erythrocyte membrane et al. were measured, the results showed that compared with the non-anemic pregnant women, activities of SOD and GSH-Px of erythrocyte membrane in anemic pregnant women decreased, the level of MDA increased and the membrane fliudity also decreased. For those pregnant women whose Hb levels are more than 130g/L, the antioxidative activity and cell function have no significant difference compared with those pregnant women whose Hb levels are 110-130 g/L. It is indicated that with the improvement of iron status, the antioxidative activity increased. Based on the above results, we further investigated the effect of iron and retinol supplementation on iron status and immune function of anemic pregnant women. We randomly allocated 186 anemic pregnant women(12-24w gestation) into four groups. Group C was the placebo group, I was supplemented daily with 60 mg iron as ferrous sulfate, IF with 60 mg iron and 0.4 mg folic acid, IFR with 60 mg iron,0.4 mg folic acid and 2.0 mg retinol. Nutrition status biomarkers including hemoglobin concentration, erythrocyte protoporphyrin (EP), plasma ferritin, plasma retinol, plasma folic acid and immune indexes including IL-2 and lymphocyte proliferation were measured. After the 2 months trial, compared with group C, there were considerable increases of iron status in Hb and plasma ferritin in the I, IF and IFR groups, IL-2 levels and lymphocyte proliferation also increased significantly. Iron combined folic acid and retinol supplementation was more beneficial to improving iron status and immune function during pregnancy than iron alone. This shows that micronutrients (iron, retinol, et al.) supplementation can effectively improve nutrition status of anemic pregnant women and promote the immune function. Taking the elderly population’s physiological characteristics into account, they are vulnerable to malnutrition. Therefore, we analyzed the effect of vitamin E supplementation on the antioxidant capacity in the elderly population.180 middle-aged and elderly people(55-70 yrs) were randomly allocated into 4 groups:placebo control group and 100,200,300mg/d VE supplement groups. The intervention period was 4 months. Plasma and erythrocyte membrane were collected for measurement at baseline and after the intervention. The concentration of plasma MDA and activity of plasma SOD were determined. Erythrocyte hemolysis and membrane fluidity were detected too. The plasma VE concentration increased significantly in the three VE supplement groups after 4 months of supplementation. Plasma MDA was reduced and SOD activity was reduced too, while there were no significant differences between the three supplement groups. Compared with group C,200 or 300mg/d VE supplementation decreased erythrocyte hemolysis and elevated erythrocyte membrane fliudity.Results of these studies confirmed that IDA (Hb<110g/L) can decrease antioxidative activity and cell functions of pregnant women. With the improvement of iron status, the antioxidative activity and cell functions of pregnant women are increased gradually. The high level of hemoglobin which is above 130g/L does not have additional effect on the antioxidative activity and cell functions. Iron combined folic acid and retinol supplementation was more beneficial to improving iron status, IL-2 and lymphocyte proliferation during pregnancy than iron alone. For middle-aged and elderly people, supplementation of 100-300mg/d VE can effectively alleviate oxidative damage and 200-300mg/d VE can improve erythrocyte function.