A nuclear reactor turns out to be an excellent tool to study the uptake of iron in the body. Iron shortage results in millions of anaemic people worldwide.
Feeling weak and tired, looking pale and having trouble concentrating? These are the classic symptoms of anaemia: too few red blood cells, or insufficient iron in the red blood cells to adequately transport oxygen through the body. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) almost half the people in South-America, Africa and Southern-Asia are suffering from it, mostly through dietary shortcomings.
Generally about 10% of the daily intake of 10-20 milligrams of iron is absorbed in the gut, most of which is used for the blood-carrying protein haemoglobin. Much is unknown about the influence of other trace elements like zinc or copper on the iron absorption. Even less is known about the iron-uptake during sickness. That’s why PhD researcher Tayser Ismail Yagob Mohamed said that: ‘There is a need for a safe and standardised method to study iron metabolism in both normal and pathological conditions.’
Ismail Yagob Mohamed was a researcher at the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission before she joined the Department of Radiation Science & Technology (Faculty of Applied Sciences) in 2012 for a PhD project. Her study was part of the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes, designed to foster institutional development. At the end of her research project she pleas for a research reactor in Sudan, rather than a nuclear power plant (proposition 5).
Tracing milligrams of iron through the body is not an easy task. Not only small quantities of blood and urine have to be tested, but also macroscopic samples of food and faeces. Besides, researchers would like to see differences between newly added iron and iron already present in the body.
The solution is known as ‘neutron activation analysis’: a method that bombards samples with neutrons from a reactor core. Elements present in the sample become radioactive and disintegrate following known patterns. By analysing the spectra and intensities of the radiation, researchers can accurately reconstruct the amount of the various elements present. They can also distinguish between chemically identical isotopes of iron, thus allowing discriminating between new and already-present iron in the samples.
However suitable for the task, neutron activation is not a very practical method. The requirement of a nuclear research reactor limits the applicability, as do the acquisition times of multiple hours. Therefore neutron activation is a research tool rather than a diagnostic one.
That said, Ismail Yagob Mohamed also shares practical insights. In her propositions, she quotes the ‘lucky iron fish’ as a possible solution for the iron deficiency anaemia in developing countries.
• Tayser Ismail Yagob Mohamed, Iron Studies in Man using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis and Enriched Stable Activable Isotopes, PhD supervisors Prof. Bert Wolterbeek and Prof. Albert van de Wiel, December 19, 2016.
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