| abstract |
A palatable metal amino acid chelate for administration to humans and other warm-blooded animals is disclosed wherein there are sufficient ligands to provide ionic and coordinate covalent bonds equal to the coordination number of the central metal ion while, at the same time, maintaining charge balance in the chelate molecule. There must be at least one ligand of the polydentate type which must be an α-amino acid with the further proviso that any unidentate or polydentate ligand(s) must be charge balanced organic ligands. Charge balancing may be accomplished by means of an organic acid and dicarboxylic, hydroxycarboxylic, hydroxydicarboxylic or hydroxytricarboxylic acids in particular, which maintains the chelate molecule as an optimum pH for purposes of stability and palatability. |