Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-25
2001-03-20
Wortman, Donna (Department: 1643)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Product with added plural inorganic mineral or element...
Reexamination Certificate
active
06203827
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a composition containing readily absorbable calcium and to a process for producing the same.
BACKGROUND ART
Calcium is one of constituent ingredients of bones and teeth, and it is of importance as a factor regulating muscles, nervous systems and hormone secretion for maintaining functions of a living body. Furthermore it has been proved that it affects immunological functions. Though it is known that lack of calcium ingestion affects development of bone diseases, as well as adult diseases such as hypertension, ischemic heart diseases and endocrine diseases and calcium has been becoming of general interest, the amount thereof ingested in the food life is not yet sufficient in our country. Therefore, various calcium preparations and health foods containing calcium have been proposed and sold on the market for making up the deficiency.
For example, chemically synthesized calcium compounds, calcium compounds originating in shellfishes, crustaceans, eggshells and animals' bones, and calcium originating in plants such as seaweeds have been used so far, but the absorption in vivo of such calcium is not so high and in many cases where they are used as preparations or food additives, they have difficulties in their taste and flavor, so that they have not yet been in popular use.
The present inventor et. al have noted on obtaining calcium having good absorbability in vivo and nice taste and flavor upon ingestion, and capable of providing calcium preparations or food additives containing such calcium from natural animal materials which are stable calcium sources and, as a result of experiment and investigation, have found that calcium compounds obtained by baking external skeletons of sea urchins which are composed of spines and shells can satisfy such purpose, and have further proceeded with the investigation and development of a practical process for producing them, and of the formulation of a composition obtained through the process which contain, calcium compounds originating in sea urchins as a main component.
During such process, the inventor has discovered that the amount of calcium absorbed in vivo is remarkably increased by compounding an appropriate amount of chondroitin sulfate, which belongs to sulfomucopolysaccharides, into the thus obtained calcium compound, the result of which has been filed as Japanese Patent Application Hei 6-260996. As a result of further investigation and development, it has been found that addition of chondroitin sulfate markedly promotes the absorption of calcium in vivo not only in the case of calcium originating in shells of sea urchin but also in the case of calcium originating in other animals or ordinary calcium salts obtained by synthesis such as calcium lactate and calcium carbonate. As described above, absorption of calcium in vivo is promoted by the addition of chondroitin sulfate and it has been also found that the absorption shows specific dependence on the concentration of chondroitin sulfate.
Although the chondroitin sulfate markedly promotes the absorption of calcium in vivo, it is never likely that this increases calcium concentration in blood so rapidly as to break the calcium balance in blood.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been accomplished based on the foregoing knowledge of the present inventor, et. al, and the first feature of the present invention resides in a food composition containing readily absorbable calcium, which comprises a calcium salt and 0.2 to 5% by weight of chondroitin sulfate on the basis of a calcium content in the calcium salt described above.
More preferably, the ratio of chondroitin sulfate to the calcium content in the calcium salt is 0.3 to 2.5% by weight.
A more concrete feature of the present invention applied to the use of natural calcium sources resides in a food composition containing readily absorbable calcium, which comprises a calcium salt of an organic carboxylic acid obtained by processing external skeletons of sea urchins and 0.2 to 5% by weight of chondroitin sulfate on the basis of the calcium content in the calcium salt.
A third feature of the present invention resides in a process for producing a food composition containing readily absorbable calcium, wherein the process comprises baking and hydrating external skeletons of sea urchins thereby forming calcium hydroxide, which is then neutralized by reaction with an organic carboxylic acid, thereby forming a calcium salt of the organic carboxylic acid, and adding 0.2 to 5% by weight of chondroitin sulfate on the basis of a calcium content in the calcium salt.
In a food composition of the present invention containing readily absorbable calcium, since it comprises 0.2 to 5% by weight of chondroitin sulfate on the basis of the calcium content in the calcium salt, absorption of calcium in vivo is markedly promoted. Chondroitin sulfate, like heparin, kerato sulfate and hyalurono sulfate, belongs to sulfomucopolysaccharides which exist widely in the animal kingdom and, particularly, chondroitin sulfate and its salt have been already proved for their safety as food additives (emulsion stabilizer, fish odor remover).
Chondroitin sulfate is a water soluble polymer having a molecular weight of about 50,000, in which sulfuric acid is ester-linked to reiteratedly bonded disaccharides comprising a derivative of chondrosamine and D-glucuronic acid coupled in &bgr;-glycoside-linkage, an aqueous solution of which is viscous and which is obtained as a C-isomer of chondroitin sulfate, for example, from shark cartilage.
When chondroitin sulfate or the like is blended into a calcium salt, absorption of calcium in vivo is markedly improved as mentioned above. The reason is not completely clear but since sulfomucopolysaccharides are generally liable to combine with protein, it is considered that, upon absorption of calcium into cells through the cell surface of intestinal membranes in the form of Ca-bound protein, chondroitin sulfate interacts with lactic acid or the like which is a constituent acid of a calcium salt, to promote absorption of calcium under the influence of the interaction therewith.
As to the amount of chondroitin sulfate blended into the calcium salt, improvement in the absorption of calcium is recognized even with an extremely small addition amount, for example, of 0.01% by weight of chondroitin sulfate on the basis of the calcium content but, at about 6% by weight, the absorbability is rather lowered markedly. The effect of chondroitin sulfate becomes remarkable from about 0.2% by weight to the calcium content and an especially excellent absorbability is exhibited at 0.3 to 2.5%. On the other hand, in excess of 1%, the above-mentioned effect tends to gradually decrease and, especially, when it is more than 5%, the effect of promoting the absorption of calcium is markedly lowered.
Therefore, in the present invention, about 0.2 to 5% by weight, preferably, 0.3 to 2.5% by weight of chondroitin sulfate is added on the basis of the calcium content.
Considering safety upon ingestion in a living body, calcium is preferably used in the form of an inorganic salt, such as carbonate, and an organic carboxylic acid salt. As a source of calcium, synthesized calcium salts such as calcium lactate, calcium citrate and calcium carbonate can be used, but calcium salts of various carboxylic acids obtained by baking and hydrating natural calcium sources, for example, sea urchin shells, shells and egg shells are preferred. In the present invention, among the above-mentioned natural calcium sources, calcium obtained by baking sea urchin's external skeletons is particularly preferred.
Sea urchins have crystals of calcium carbonate accumulated in the body walls of them, which are combined as calcic plates to form external skeletons. Ovaries of sea urchins are mainly extracted and served for food, while their external skeletons are mostly thrown away as they are, except for being partially used as fertilizers for farming and this causes a problem of fishery wastes. However, sea urchin shells are
Liniak Berenato Longacre & White
Nishimura Masahiko
Wortman Donna
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