Table 2.

A summary of study blood analytes and methods

Analyte	Methods
Plasma folate	Microtiter technique with chloramphenicol-resistant Lactobacillus casei as the test micro-organism25
Erythrocyte folate	Calculated from whole blood folate by subtracting plasma folate and correcting for haematocrit
Plasma vitamin B12	Elecsys 2010 (Roche Diagnostics, Switzerland) automated electrochemiluminescence immunoassay
Plasma ferritin, sTfR, AGP, CRP and RBP	Single sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (s-ELISA)26

AGP, α−1 acid glycoprotein; CRP, C-reactive protein; RBP, retinol binding protein; sTfR, soluble transferrin receptor.