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Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) and chitosan-coated NLCs (CH-NLCs) were prepared by a combined double emulsion and melt dispersion method. The physicochemical properties of them were investigated to determine the optimum conditions. At 3% emulsifier concentration, the NLCs showed about 191.0 ± 4.1 nm mean particle size and low polydispersity index value compared to those observed under other conditions. The encapsulation efficiency of CH-NLCs was 83.9% which was about 10% higher than that of NLCs. In vitro release test showed that low release amount of iron from the NLCs (11%) and CH-NLCs (5%) in simulated gastric condition within 3 h, whereas the iron release amounts of the NLCs and CH-NLCs were high (over 77%) in simulated intestinal condition because both NLCs and CH-NLCs were totally destructed in the intestinal condition after 3 h. In the thiobarbituric acid test, the absorbance of milk-fortified NLC and CH-NLCs was lower than that of original milk. Based on these results, CH-NLCs showed great potential for iron fortification in milk.
Lee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.