Subject: Does vitamin C help or hinder absorption of iron

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Sloman)
Date: 30 Nov 1996 22:06:57 GMT

My wife is a part-time biology teacher, which includes teaching
food science.

The text books she has all say that vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
helps the absorption of iron.

However she has some sample exam questions from one of the UK
A-level exam boards, and their answer booklet states exactly the
opposite: i.e. it hinders the absorption of iron.

Question: has there been some new discovery that the particular
examiner knows about which has not yet found its way into the
textbooks, or has this examiner simply misremembered or got
confused.

Any informed comments welcome.

Thanks
Aaron
===
-- 
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, England
EMAIL   [email-masked]
Phone: +44-121-414-4775 (Sec 3711)       Fax:   +44-121-414-4281

---

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Sloman)
Date: 6 Dec 1996 01:37:29 GMT

I previously posted this to sci.bio.food-science

> Date: 30 Nov 1996 22:06:57 GMT
> Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK
>

Well, I got no replies. But my wife wrote to the exam board
concerned (London) and has now received a very apologetic
phone call saying that the examiner had made a mistake and
the text books are right, and the mistake had somehow not been
noticed until very recently.....

I wonder how many kids slipped a grade because they lost 2 marks for
giving the right answer?

Aaron
====

---

From: Grant Boston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 08:24:24 -0800

All the references I've seen say that Vitamin C aids the absorption of 
iron. Iron supplements are usually prescribed with Vitamin C for that 
purpose.

Grant Boston,  Milkfat Products Section
New Zealand Dairy Research Institute

The views expressed here are mine and not those of NZDRI

--

---

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Sloman)
Date: 8 Dec 1996 09:50:06 GMT

I had previously written
> > opposite: i.e. it hinders the absorption of iron.

Grant Boston <[email-masked]> responded

> Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 08:24:24 -0800
> Organization: Milkfat Products, NZ Dairy Research Institute
>

Many thanks.

Just in case you did not see my second posting, I thought I should
let you know that we have discovered that the examiner concerned has
admitted that they made a mistake on this point.

Best wishes.
Aaron
===
BAN UNSOLICTED EMAIL ADVERTISEMENTS
===