Influence of Holder Pasteurisation on DHA concentrations in human breast milk

Human breast milk is universally recognized as the optimal food for term and pre-term infant. In the absence of an adequate supply of breast milk, mothers are offered term breast milk from human milk banks, which collect, process and store milk from healthy lactating women, as useful alternative for the care and treatment of premature and low-birth-weight neonates (1). To avoid the transmission of infectious micro-organisms, donor milk must be pasteurised before it is given to infants. Pasteurisation by the Holder technique (62,5°C, 30 min) results in the loss of variable amounts of immunoproteins, vitamins, fatty acids and other components such as long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs), like Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3). These are very critical during the perinatal period, in which the brain and retina are developing, and affect visual acuity and learning capacity (2). Aim of this work is to investigate the effects of Holder pasteurisation on the human milk fatty acid composition and expecially on the reduction in DHA concentration. Materials and methods The milk samples were collected from mothers at different ages of gestation. The week of gestation considered ranged between 24th -26th (named 1st gestation age), 27th -29th (named 2nd gestation age), 30th – 32th (named 3rd gestation age), 38th -40th (named 4th gestation age). For ach sample considered the fatty acids were extracted according to the method reported by Lopez-Lopez et al. (3), using an Agilent gas-crhomatograph (7890A), coupled with an Agilent mass spectrometer (5975C). The amounts of DHA recorded in pasteurised milk were compared with those extracted in untreated samples.