Vitamin compatible micronutrient supplement

Details Vitamin compatible micronutrient supplement Vitamin compatible micronutrient supplement

1999-12-01

2001-07-24

Weddington, Kevin E. (Department: 1614)

Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions

Designated organic active ingredient containing

Heavy metal containing doai

Reexamination Certificate

active

06265438

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a micronutrient supplement for food or animal feeds and a method of enhancing the survivability, growth, health and/or reproductivity of humans and other animals. More specifically, this invention is directed to a micronutrient supplement that includes a basic salt of an essential metal, which provides high bioavailability of the essential metal to humans and other animals, and to a method of enhancing the growth of humans and other animals by administering the micronutrient supplement either as a single supplement or admixed with other nutrients.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Micronutrients include vitamins and some elements usually in the form of minerals or metal salts; most notably the elements include calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, zinc, copper, magnesium, manganese and iodine. Micronutrients are generally consumed in small amounts, i.e., less than 1 gm/day, usually absorbed unchanged, and many essential elements have catalytic functions. While the micronutrients are often present in minute amounts, their bioavailability is essential for survival, growth, health and reproduction. Micronutrients are important for children and other young animals, particularly during their early development years when they are rapidly growing. Furthermore, many new animal breeds require additional amounts of micronutrients as their abilities to grow at a faster rate while consuming less feed has improved. This intensive growth imposes greater metabolic stresses, causing increased susceptibility to vitamin deficiencies. It is well recognized that the needed micronutrients are often not found or not found in sufficient quantities in their food or feed sources, whether these sources are naturally occurring or commercially prepared. Consequently, virtually all industrial food and feed formulations are fortified with vitamins and minerals. The cost to commercial livestock producers for supplying micronutrients to their livestock herds can be staggering.
While human and animals' needs for additional nutrients have been well documented, the availability of the micronutrients has not always met their needs. It is not sufficient to simply increase amounts of the micronutrients in the food or feed sources. This method is ineffective, wasteful and unsafe. Many of the micronutrients are not readily absorbed; the added amounts of vitamins and minerals are simply excreted without being absorbed. Excess loading of vitamins and minerals is unsafe, and in certain circumstances, excess loading can be toxic, causing severe acute and chronic harm and even can be fatal. Thus, there is a need to provide an inexpensive, readily absorbed micronutrient to decrease costs, reduce waste and to help establish a more precise control of the nutritional requirement for humans and animals.
Most commercial processes combine several vitamins and minerals either in a pre-mixed feed supplement or in the feed mix itself. It is known that the vitamin stability can be directly correlated with the vitamin environment, moisture content, temperature, and method of feed processing. Typically pellitized feed products are prepared by mixing a raw feed source with feed supplements such as vitamins, the resulting raw feed mixture is processed with water (or steam) and heated to form a mash, which is forced through a pelletizing die. This process provides nearly optimum conditions (heat and moisture) to oxidatively degrade the included vitamins. Furthermore, the deterioration of vitamins admixed in a feed mix that have been exposed to light and heat has been well documented, especially when inorganic trace minerals also are intimately mixed with the vitamins. For example, it has been determined that multi-vitamin premixes containing inorganic trace minerals lose about 55% of their pyridoxine activity when stored at 98 ° F. for about 3 months. Conversely, a premix containing no trace minerals lost only about 24% of its pyridoxine activity under the same conditions. It has been postulated that certain metal salts adversely affect vitamin stability, possibly by promoting a redox reaction that oxidizes the vitamins, destroying their bioactivity. Loss of vitamin activity during storage of the premixes and other prepared nutrients may account for hidden depressions in growth, feed efficiency and disease resistance due to subclinical vitamin deficiencies. Thus, there is a need to provide a micronutrient supplement that is readily bioavailable, storage stable and compatible with a wide variety of different vitamins. The micronutrient supplement must also be cost-efficient to produce and provide a food source for humans and animals that will increase their survivability, growth, health and/or reproductivity.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to micronutrient food or feed supplements, and the manufacture and use thereof. Various aspects of the invention are novel, nonobvious, and provide various advantages. While the actual nature of the invention covered herein can only be determined with reference to the claims appended hereto, certain forms and features, which are characteristic of the preferred embodiments disclosed herein, are described briefly as follows.
Thus, there is provided in the present invention a micronutrient food or feed supplement that comprises a salt of an essential metal. The essential metal can be formulated as a pharmaceutically acceptable basic salt of the formula that includes a divalent or trivalent cation of an essential metal, a pharmaceutically acceptable anion and a hydroxyl moiety. In one preferred embodiment of the present invention, a micronutrient supplement comprising a basic salt of the formula Zn(OH)
y
(SO
4
)
(2-y)/2
or Zn(OH)
y
Cl
(2-y)
is provided wherein y is selected to be greater than 0 but less than about 2. The essential metals formulated as the pharmaceutically acceptable salts of the above formula are readily absorbed by animals.
The present invention also provides a method of enhancing the growth of humans and other animals by providing a micronutrient supplement that comprises a basic metal salt of an essential metal cation and a pharmaceutically acceptable anion. The micronutrient supplement can be administered directly or it can be admixed with vitamins and other micronutrients to provide a supplemental premix that may be administered to humans or animals. Alternatively, the supplemental premix can be combined with a food or animal feed. In a preferred form, the micronutrient supplement, the premix and/or the food or animal feed may be stored for extended periods of time without significant deterioration of the bioactivity of the basic metal salt, the vitamins and other nutrients. When the micronutrient supplement is provided to humans or other animals in a physiologically effective amount, their survivability, growth rate, health and/or reproductivity increases.
There is also provided in the present invention a method of enhancing vitamin stability in a feed composition that contains at least one inorganic mineral. The method comprises providing as the inorganic mineral a basic salt of an essential metal. The basic salt is admixed with at least one vitamin and optionally other nutrients to provide a premixed nutrient composition or feed. The premixed nutrient composition or feed can be stored for an extended period of time without significant loss of the bioactivity of the included vitamin(s).
It is one object of the present invention to provide a micronutrient supplement.


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