Phytic acid added to white-wheat bread inhibits fractional apparent magnesium absorption in humans.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Magnesium and Phytic Acid in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The objective was to evaluate the effect of phytic acid on fractional apparent magnesium absorption in humans.

Why It Was Studied

Phytic acid has been reported to impair the absorption of minerals and trace elements such as calcium, zinc, and iron in humans.

However, limited information is available on the effect of phytic acid on magnesium absorption.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 9 adults taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, both men and women.

Two stable-isotope studies were performed with 8-9 healthy adults per study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and crossover study.

The adults were allocated by chance, so the Magnesium group and the comparison group should start out alike.

In the crossover set-up each of the adults took both Magnesium and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Apparent magnesium absorption was based on fecal monitoring.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Biological Availability, Bread, Feces, Intestinal Absorption, Isotopes, Linear Models and Magnesium.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Magnesium and Phytic Acid in 9 adults.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2004 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc library page, all human trials.