Abstract

To investigate the interaction effect of iron-deficiency anemia status and effect of feeding germinated or fermented soybean in different ratios to wheat flour, 84 albino male growing rats were used as biological model. They aged 28-35days and body weight 60-78g. They were divided into two major groups according to their hemoglobin value and body weight. First group contained 42 healthy rats and divided in turn into seven equal subgroups. Second group contained also 42 anemic rats (iron depleted by bleeding 15-20 drops of blood from the retro-ocular vein) divided into seven equal subgroups too. Both anemic and healthy groups were fed for 15 days experimental period the balanced diets, Wheat Flour, (WF, control diet), WF supplemented with 7.5% or 15% ground unprocessed whole soybean seeds, WF supplemented with 7.5% or 15%germinated soybean seeds, WF supplemented with 7.5% or 15% fermented soybean seeds. Hemoglobin value (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), hemoglobin iron (HbFe), and total serum protein, total iron binding capacity (TIBC), transferrin saturation (TS) were determined. Unsaturated iron binding capacity (UIBC), hemoglobin regeneration efficiency (HRE), and apparent iron absorption (AFeA) were calculated. Analysis of variance and Duncan multiple tests of the SI, TS% and total serum protein of anemic rats were lower than those of healthy rats. However, the Hb, PCV gains, TIBC, UIBC, AFeA and HRE values of anemic rats were higher than those values of healthy rats. MCHC and HbFe gains of the anemic rats were similar to those gains of healthy rats. The most favorite parameters to study iron deficiency anemia were TIBC, SI, TS, HRE, Hb and PCV. Supplementation of WF with 15%germinated soybean seeds indicated to have promising effects in preventing and treatment of iron deficiency anemia in rats.