Comparison of two food composition databases in estimating folate intake among young women

1
Comparison of two food composition databases in
estimating folate intake among young women
Mirjana Gurinovic1 , Marija Djekic-Ivankovic1,
Zvonimir Šatalic2, Marina Nikolic1, Irena Colic
Baric2, Irena Keser2, Matea Ivkovic2, Marija
Glibetic1
1 Centre of Research Excellence in Nutrition and
Metabolism, Institute for Medical Research,
University of Belgrade, Serbia 2Laboratory for
Nutrition Science, Faculty of Food Technology and
Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Introduction Adequate folate intake has an
important role in the primary prevention of
several diseases and nutritional status of the
vitamin is considered to be a potential public
health issue requiring further study .
Consequences of folate insufficiency arising from
inadequate intake include increased risk for
neural tube defects making folate a critical
nutrient among women of reproductive age.
  Accurate estimation of dietary folate intake
depends on limitations of dietary assessment
methods, methodological issues related to the
biochemical analysis of food folate, adjustment
for bioavailability differences between naturally
occurring food folate and folic acid from
fortified foods and dietary supplements and
inaccuracies related to product label
declarations.   The aim of this study was to
compare the application of two different food
composition databases (FCDB) in estimating
dietary folate intake.
Subjects and methods Previously validated food
frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was administered to
young women (n709, age range 18-30 years).
Folate intake measured by the FFQ was expressed
as dietary folate equivalents (DFE) with 1.7
equivalency factor for folic acid from fortified
foods and dietary supplements and factor 2 for
folic acid from dietary supplements taken on an
empty stomach. Daily folate intake was
calculated by using two FCDBs Kaic-Rak Antonic
(1990) (FCDB1) and Regional FCDB (FCDB2) .
Results and discussion The ultimate goals of
dietary assessment methods like FFQ include
comparison of reported intakes with intake
standards and accurate assessment of a nutrient
intake depends on the accuracy of the food
composition databases . When evaluating folate
intake among women of reproductive age, it is
important to account for the differences in
bioavailability between naturally occurring
folate and synthetic folic acid by using DFE .
In this study, the average folate intake among
young women assessed by FFQ was 247 400 and 252
405 µg DFE using FCDB1 and FCDB2, respectively,
and the means didnt differ significantly. For
comparison, folate intake among women from 15
European countries ranged from 186 to 465 µg .
To reduce the risk of neural tube defects, it
is recommended that women capable of becoming
pregnant consume 400 µg of folic acid from
fortified foods, dietary supplements, or both, in
addition to 400 µg of food folate from a varied
diet . In this study, daily folate intake below
400 µg was observed in 91 and 93.57 of young
women in Croatia and Serbia, respectively. The
average difference between the folate intake
using two FCDBs was 5.7 40.3 µg DFE. Pearsons
correlation coefficient between folate intake
assessed by the two FCDBs was 0.998 (plt0.001). In
a similar study with comparison of nutrient
intakes using Swedish and Finnish food
composition database, Pearsons correlation
coefficient was 0.94, daily folate intake
differed by 8 and the difference was
statistically significant .
Table 1. Serbia Croatia
n 420 289
Age Mean SD 23 2.20 21.9 2.34
BMI Mean SD 20.7 2.08 21.8 3.1
FCDB1 Mean SD 221 136.4 228 156.9
FCDB2 Mean SD 229 138.3 212 149.5
Conclusion Folate intake among the studied
sample of young women was below recommended 400
µg /day and regarding data for food folate, both
FCDBs could be used interchangeably.
Acknowledgement Funding under projects
bilateral project funded by Ministries of Science
of Serbia and Croatia Folate status in
populations at risk young adult women of
reproductive age and elderly FP7 EuroFIR-Nexus
Ministry of Science, Serbia III grant 41030
058-0222411-2820 Diet, homocysteine and bone
health, Ministry of science, education and sport,
Croatia