Mineral utilization of vegetarians: impact of variation in fat intake

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Abstract
One of the benefits associated with consumption of vegetarian diets is that these diets usually have lower contents of total fat and cholesterol and have more favorable polyunsaturated-to-saturated fatty acid ratios. Thus, use of vegetarian diets tends to fit recommendations relative to decreasing risk of cardiovascular disease. However, changes in level and kind of dietary fat may result in alterations in utilization of essential minerals. In studies carried out at the University of Nebraska using healthy human subjects, low-fat diets were found to inhibit the absorption of iron, zinc, manganese, and calcium. Further research indicated that both increase in fatty acid chain length and increase in saturation of fatty acids resulted in a decrease in Ca bioavailability. However, increased dietary cholesterol levels tended to increase Ca bioavailability.