Abstract
The similarity of the fat fraction in infant formulas rich in either bovine milk fat (MF) or vegetable oil (VO) to breast milk was evaluated by analyzing their lipid composition. Milk fat-rich formulas were highly similar (average similarity index 0.68) to breast milk compared to the VO-rich formulas (average similarity index 0.56). The highest difference in the indices was found in the contents of cholesterol (0.66 vs 0.28 in MF- and VO-rich formulas, respectively, on average) and polar lipids (0.84 vs 0.53), the positional distribution of fatty acids in the sn-2 position of triacylglycerols (0.53 vs 0.28), and fatty acid composition (0.72 vs 0.54). The VO-based formulas were superior in similarity in n - 6 PUFA. Thus, the addition of bovine MF fractions is an effective way to increase the similarity between the lipid composition of infant formulas and human milk.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 6191-6201 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 25 May 2022 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
Mothers who donated breast milk are gratefully acknowledged. We thank the Foundation of Nutrition Research for providing the funding for this research. The study was also funded by the Academy of Finland as part of the project Chiral lipids in chiral nature: a novel strategy for regio- and stereo-specific research of human milk and omega-3 lipids (decision no. 310982).
Keywords
- bovine milk fat
- fatty acid composition
- human milk fat
- infant formula
- phospholipid composition
- regioisomerism
- similarity index
- sterol composition