![SpaTone 100% Natural Iron Supplement 28 Sachets $17.99 @ Direct Chemist Outlet [VIC/QLD/NSW] ($27.99 @ Chemist Warehouse)](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/06/260506.jpg?h=53ee99b4)
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the best - most easily and efficiently absorbed - iron supplement available :)
$27.99 @ Chemist Warehouse => $16.99 via 10% difference price beat
SpaTone 100% Natural Iron Supplement 28 Sachets $17.99 @ Direct Chemist Outlet [VIC/QLD/NSW] ($27.99 @ Chemist Warehouse)
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tonester on 08/08/2016 - 01:57 lasoo.com.au (76 clicks)
Last edited 08/08/2016 - 09:42 by 1 other user
Last edited 08/08/2016 - 09:42 by 1 other user
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They got back to me pretty quickly actually with a response; hopefully you can see this:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxN86ebVsDLzM3hRRngxQzVIen…
They admit in the discussion that gastrointestinal side effects are dosage related, so really there's no cause to buy this over iron tablets if that is your only issue. These sachets have less iron per sachet that a 200mg Ferrous sulphate iron tablet by a long shot, but this is fine as only a very small amount of the iron is absorbed daily (about 2% of the ~20mg daily dietary iron suggested; they suggest 2mg, that seems to be consistent with most iron metabolism information I can find).
Spatone was compared to placebo in 64 people; 29 took Spatone, 35 took placebo (water acidified to Spatone's pH of 2.9 with sulphuric acid apparently). Everyone else from that 102, which was already derived from a larger number, did not complete the study. Those that didn't were investigated to find out why - roughly equal amounts dropped out because they experienced nausea and bad taste from the placebo and Spatone (that's only 2 - 4 people for each though, not that I would assume this stuff tastes nice).
My concerns with what is not addressed: comparison of Spatone to an oral tablet form of iron supplementation in terms of iron absorption and long term antenatal reduction in iron. There is also no identifiable reason to claim from this paper that Spatone does not cause the side effects of an oral tablet supplement as they do not look in to dyspepsia questionnaire-related test results in detail and admit that they do not differ between placebo and Spatone - which means that Spatone doesn't cause dyspepsia aka indigestion more or less than the pH 2.9 sulphuric acid water. The impaft factor for the Journal of Clinical Haematology is also very low. I'm also not sure how they controlled for dietary iron in these patients and they use results with 2 Standard Deviations from the mean which shows results were dispersed; for example, that 95% of the results they were getting were between - e.g. for ferritin levels with Spatone at 22 weeks gestation - 7.5 and 27.9 micrograms/Litre. Compared to at 28 weeks: 3.2 - 23.6 micrograms/L. You then look at the significance at which the data within changed between the two populations, which was P=0.01. This means that there is a 1% chance there is no difference observed between the Spatone and placebo groups, and therefore we indicate that some difference was observed.
Bottom line, Spatone is an iron supplement that works, but how much better or worse it is than iron tablets I cannot say. In one sachet of Spatone there is 5mg of iron, of which I am not sure how much is absorbed. I would recommend this product over iron tablets only if you cannot take supplementary iron in tablet form.
Here's a better quality version of the article if you like: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.cc/doi/10.1046/j.1365…
If you're tired of paywalls, just go to http://sci-hub.cc/, enter your pubmed link and click through full article links for free.
How… how have I not heard about this???
Haha. I was thinking exactly the same thing a few months ago. If only I could remember all the abstracts I've settled for in time gone by.
If you're tired of paywalls, just go to http://sci-hub.cc/, enter your pubmed link and click through full article links for free.
thanks for sharing :)
I've requested full access to the paper they cite for their 'clinically proven to' claims, as it his behind a paywall. From the abstract though, it seems they took a sample of 102 low-risk antenatal patients who were non-compliant with orally prescribed iron tablets, i.e. they didn't take them for various reasons (the most commonly mentioned issue from the Spatone site with iron supplements is constipation; currently I cannot find anything to back up the claim that Spatone doesn't cause constipation.), and gave them either this or a placebo. As you would expect, iron levels dropped less over the course of the trial in the Spatone intervention group (24% drop vs 51% drop). How this compares to oral tablet forms of iron supplementation is not cited, so I can't validate their claim of being the "best - most easily and efficiently absorbed" anything.
Incidences of indigestion, which was tested for, were not observed to differ between the two groups - they cite a "recognised and well-validated questionnaire" to be the test for that.
Compliance between placebo and Spatone groups was not significantly different; this might indicate that if you don't stick to iron tablets, there's no reason you would be more likely to stick to this instead. Compliance was also relatively low - 57% for Spatone and 67% for placebo.
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12641613