COW MILK Vs HUMAN MILK

Divya K B
Introduction
 World Health Organisation recommends human milk as the
best source of infant nutrition
 It’s mainly because of the fragile gut of young ones
 Even infant formulae dedicated and recommended for early life
does not ensure sufficient supply of desirable components
 It was shown that the most similar to human milk is mare milk.
 However, none of the mammals’ milk will replace women’s
milk for infant nutrition
 Thus, exclusive breastfeeding is recommended

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Carbohydrates
 Human milk contains higher carbohydrates (lactose) than cow
or buffalo milk
 40% of the total energy of human milk is supplied by lactose
which is only 29% in case of cow milk
 Presence of non-lactose oligosaccharides such as bifidus
stimulating factors in human milk enables the growth of
healthy microflora in the intenstines.

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Fats/lipids
 Fat present in human milk provides essential fatty acids (required for
nervous system development and prostaglandin synthesis), fat
soluble vitamins and sterols
 A unique feature of human milk is that increase in level of fat during
feeding to infant serves as an appetite control mechanism for the
infant
 Almost an equal amount of fat is present in cow and human milks;
however, qualitatively they differ widely in their fatty acid make-up
 Human milk fat is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) (notably
linoleic acid- an essential fatty acid- about 7 to 8 times higher) which
play an important role in brain development

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 Two important saturated fatty acids - myristic and palmitic - along
with stearic acid are preferentially esterified at the beta position in
human milk fat.
 The presence of comparatively high content of palmitic acid in
position Sn-2 increases the digestibility of human milk fat
 As a consequence of this, lipids from human milk are more easily absorbed
and excretion of fat by infants fed with breast milk is only about half to that
of bottle-fed infants.
 In addition, human milk fat contains easily digestible oleic acid in
higher proportion while cow milk fat contains excess of butyric acid
which may give rise to fatty diarrhea (steatorrhea).
 Higher content of 18:1 in human milk also enables improved
retention of calcium in breastfed infants.

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 Absence of orotic acid in human milk makes it less prone to
occurrence of atherosclerotic plaques in breast-fed infants.
 Over and above these differences, human milk has been shown
to have higher content of unsaponifiable matter, higher ratio of
phosphatidyl ethanolamine to sphingomylein and
predominancy of phosphatidyl inositol.
 Because of the differences in fatty acid make up of cow or
buffalo milk from that of human milk, it has been proposed
that all infant foods should contain PUFA rich vegetable oils so
as to provide a minimum of 300 mg/k cal of linoleic acid in the
formulas.

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Proteins
 The whey proteins are richer in essential amino acid content
(PER = 3.11) compared to caseins (PER=2.50), hence
nutritional requirements of infant could be met from relatively
lower amount of good quality proteins, typical of human milk .
 Human milk has a higher proportion of α-lactalbumin
-lactalbumin but no β
– lactoglobulin
 α-lactalbumin is of major importance to the infant from a
nutritional view as it serves as a source of essential amino
acids for the infant as well as acting as a crucial component of
an enzyme system that biosynthesizes lactose.

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 The antimicrobial proteins of human milk (lactoferrin, lysozyme and
IgA) account for 75% of the protein in human colostrum, versus 39%
in mature human milk and less than 0.1% in cow milk.
 The amino acid profile of human milk has unique ratio (0.76)
between cystine and methionine as against 3.1 in case of cow milk.
 The addition of demineralized whey to adjust the casein to whey
protein ratio of cow milk to that of human milk changes the ratio to
1.4.
 Human milk contains 13 g free amino acids of which 4 g are
essential amino acids for the human infant. Cow milk contains 33 g
free amino acids of which 16 g are essential (in100g milk).

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 Glutamic acid accounts for ~ 40% of the free amino acid pool in
human milk.
 Taurine is the next major constituent of the free amino acid pool in
human milk, but is only in trace amounts in cow milk.
 Taurine has been postulated to play a major role in fat utilization
and brain development in the infant as well as in stimulating "in
vitro" activity of pancreatic lipases.
 The proteins most concerned with the nutritional activities are the
caseins, α-lactalbumin and the folate and vitamin B12- binding
proteins.
 There are also fat globule membrane proteins, β- microglobulin and
corticosteroid - binding proteins.

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 In several brands of infant foods presently available, the protein
content is adjusted to around 1.6% (similar to human milk) but still
the casein content is 75% of the total protein
 Use of demineralized whey is helpful, however, in adjustment of
casein to whey protein ratio (40:60) similar to that in human milk.
 However, yet there is an ample scope for making the infant foods
similar to human milk with respect to various metabolic responses.

Minerals
 Human milk possesses a mineral content which is less than one
third than in cow/buffalo milk and calcium to phosphorus ratio of
2.1 as compared to about 1.5 in cow and 1.6 in buffalo milk
 The low mineral content results in a low renal solute load

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Striking Features of Human Milk
The striking features of human milk when fed to infants are as under:
1. Digestion of milk by a baby is speedy - due to formation of soft
curd.
2. Quite less load on the kidney - due to low calcium content.
3. Easy digestion and faster absorption of casein-due to smaller size of
casein micelles
4. Proper development of brain constituents - due to higher lactose
content and presence of relatively more amount of PUFA.
5. Bactericidal and anti - infective properties - due to presence of
lysozyme, secretory IgA, bifidus factor and lactoferrin

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Host – Resistant Factors in Human Milk
1. Immunoglobulins (Ig) (milk antibodies): The most abundant Ig of
human milk is IgA (versus Ig G in cow milk). It provides the infant
with protection against enteric infection and serves as an "intestinal
paint" to prevent the passage of various foreign proteins and
bacteria from the intestinal tract into circulation. Milk antibodies
function as specific host resistance factors and provide crucial
immunological protection until the new born infant’s defense system
can be established.
2. Lactoferrin (LF): Human milk contains from 3 to 100 times as much
iron binding protein LF as cow milk . LF is active "in vitro" against
enteropathogenic E. coli , Vibrio cholerae, St. mutans and Candida
albicans , presumably by chelating iron and making it unavailable for
microbial growth.

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3. Lactoperoxidase (LP): In cow milk, LP serves as a major antimicrobial
agent; it catalyzes the oxidation of thiocyanate by H202 to
hypothiocyanate. It is active against several microorganisms.
Although human milk - LP survives gastric digestion "in vitro" its low
concentration in milk may preclude any significant antibacterial role
in infant intestine.
4. Lysozyme: It cleaves the cell wall peptoglycan of a number of Gram
positive and Gram negative microorganisms and appears to act with
complement to potentiate the activity of IgA against E. coli, and with
peroxide and ascorbate to lyse E. coli and salmonella. It also plays a
role in protecting against various viruses. Human milk contains ~
3000 times as much lysozyme as cow milk .

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5. Bifidobacteria: Protect the infant against disease by producing
volatile acids which inhibit the proliferation of pathogenic
microorganisms in the gut. Within 3-4 days after birth, the
intestinal tract of breast fed infant contains up to
99% Bifidobacterium bifidum Type IV whereas the formula -fed
infants do not contain Type IV but rather 30-40% B.
bifidum Type II. A number of substances in human milk have
been reported to stimulate the proliferation of the
bifidobacteria:
a. Buffering capacity: Because of low buffering capacity of human
milk, the pH of intestine drops, making growth conditions
favourable for bifidobacteria and unfavourable for others.
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b. Lactulose: Not present in human milk or cow milk , but when
milk is sterilized (as in case of sterilized formulas) ~ 1.5% of
the total lactose is converted to lactulose during heating. It
encourages the growth of bifidobacteria.
c. Lactoferrin: Indirectly promotes the growth of bifidobacteria
by inhibiting the growth of competing E. coli.
d. Pantothenic acid : Derivatives of this acid stimulate one strain
of B. infantis .
e. Oligosaccharides and glycoproteins: Stimulate the growth of B.
bifidum var: Pennsylvanicus . Human milk contains ~ 30 to 100
fold more stimulatory activity than cow milk.

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f. Others: Human milk contains fatty acids, monoglycerides,
triglycerides, free fatty acids, copper, orosomucoid, influenze
virus hemagglutination inhibitor, etc. which help an infant to get
protection from several pathogenic organisms and viruses.
Thus the presence of bifidus factor in human milk is important as
it helps in establishment of bifidobacteria in the intestine and
in maintaining lower pH of the stool, better absorption of
minerals, synthesis of certain B-complex vitamins, resistance to
enteropathogenic bacteria, detoxification in chronic liver
diseases, etc.

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