Elemental composition of products for enteral nutrition

Abstract

Background. For the people in critical states (including the wounded) ensuring a balanced nutrition is an important part of treatment and rehabilitation processes. Particular attention while providing metabolic needs of people with physical illnesses and injuries should be paid to the mineral elements, which play an important role while being a plastic material for restoring bones, cartilage and tissue.
The aim of the scientific work is researching the elemental composition of dry soluble products for enteral nutrition "Reabilakt" and "Reabilakt-D" and the satisfaction level of average recommended daily needs of people with physical illnesses and injuries in mineral elements while consuming these products in liquid state.
Material and methods. The control in the research was product Peptamen, produced by Nestle (Switzerland). The elemental composition was investigated by the method of mass spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma using a mass spectrometer VARIAN 320MS (Australia) and software ICPMS Expert after samples mineralization was conducted.
Results. The elemental composition of dry soluble products for enteral nutrition is characterized with better performance comparing with the control sample, in which prevail only four elements from 18 (chlorine, zinc, manganese and copper). In particular, "Reabilakt" contains twice more aluminum and nickel, more molybdenum and bromine and by 24 and 29 % sulfur and sodium. Indicators of mineral content of the product "Reabilakt-D" are more substantial: in 14 positions from the 18 increasing is received. Especially noticeable is the increasing of nickel, bromine, aluminum and molybdenum by 2.7–1.2, on 70–26 % – for sulfur, selenium, sodium, chromium, phosphorus, calcium, iodine and magnesium (table 1).
It has been estimated that the consumption of prepared "Reabilakt" and "Reabilakt-D" portions provide average recommended daily needs of people with physical illnesses and injuries in minerals by 0.06–35.21 and 0.07–47.97 % respectively. Especially significant results were obtained for calcium and magnesium (30.8 and 35.2 % for "Reabilakt" and 40.6 and 46.9 % for "Reabilakt-D"), which are necessary in the process of body tissue’s recovery from injuries of different etiologies (see table 1).
Conclusion. Dry soluble products developed for enteral nutrition "Reabilakt" and "Reabilakt-D" are characterized with high mineral value and degree of satisfaction of average recommended daily needs of people with physical illnesses and injuries in mineral elements.