A team of IUG graduates from the Food Processing Department who are members of Calcium+ Mobaderoon Entrepreneurial Project implemented by IUG, managed to produce a special kind of “Calcium-consolidated cheese” for Osteoporosis prevention and treatment.
Israa Sleem, graduate of Food Processing Department at IUG said that the cheese her team produced contains fortified Calcium. She noted that Calcium is usually inadequate in the treatment of Osteoporosis. That’s why the patients are given chemical drugs that may cause some side effects in the long term.
Calcium+ Project, which is incubated by Mobaderoon Project at IUG, consists of five researchers who worked to find a possible way in which they can replace the chemical drugs with a natural product to increase the proportion of Calcium. They finally managed to produce the “Calcium-consolidated cheese” which led them to get a patent for Osteoporosis treatment granted by the Palestinian Ministry of Economy.
The team said that they used botanical extracts to increase the proportion of Calcium until they reached the same proportion existing in the drug given to Osteoporosis patients. They also added Phytoestrogens to protect healthy people.
The developed cheese contains different amounts of Calcium ranging from 800-1200 mg, in addition to 76pg of Estrogen to absorb Calcium.
The team faced so many difficulties, including the lack of the needed devices to continue the research. “There is no specialized devices to examine vitamin D in cheese in the Gaza Strip,” they said, “That’s because of the absence of the adequate funding for the tests and experiments made on cheese.”
The team seeks to create their own production line to develop new kinds of cheese. Calcium+ Project won a financial non-refundable grant reaching 4 thousand U.S. dollars to start production and marketing processes. They were also given specialized consultancy in the fields of marketing and advertising.