Vitamin A Absorption From Cassava in Women (FL-80)

We plan to conduct a single site intervention phase II intervention study in healthy adult women. Women will serve as their own controls, and will be fed three treatments in random order: a single meal of low-carotenoid cassava porridge with fat, a similar meal of bio-fortified cassava (that is high in vitamin A-forming carotenoids) with fat, and a similar meal of bio-fortified cassava without fat. Carotenoids and vitamin A will be measured in the triacylglycerol-rich lipoprotein (TRL) fraction of plasma by standard methods involving ultracentrifugation (to concentrate the TRL fraction) followed by reversed-phase HPLC using electrochemical detection. We plan to collect sufficient data to identify the times of the first appearance and peak concentrations in retinol, retinyl esters, alpha-carotene (AC), beta-carotene (BC), beta-carotene isomers (BCI), and cryptoxanthin (CX) in TRL: when a single meal containing moderately high amounts of carotenoids from bio-fortified cassava is fed to healthy adult women. We will use this data to determine the vitamin A equivalency of bio-fortified cassava in adult women, and the effect of fat on vitamin A equivalency of bio-fortified cassava.