Getting the Best Start in Life — Chromatography Helps

It is the most natural thing in the world to have children and nurture them. So when a baby is born it is natural to want to feed and love the infant so it thrives — the carrier of our genes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends breastfeeding whenever possible to give an infant the best start in life. When breastfeeding isn’t possible one option is infant formula milk. Making sure babies get all the benefits of breast milk in a powered milk formula is an ongoing project. But a team in China has recently released details of a new chromatography procedure that could help to improve formula milk — so giving babies a better start in life.

The Wonders of Breast Milk

Breast milk is considered so important to an infant’s wellbeing that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has set global targets to increase the numbers of infants who are breastfed for the first six months of their lives.

Human milk contains many compounds that essential to an infant’s development, and the role of all the different compounds is not fully understood. But in studies between breastfed and formula-fed infants — it is the breastfed babies that do better, and the benefits continue into adolescence.

One of the components thought to be key to infant development is sialic acid — a compound that can be added to infant formula.

Sialic Acid — key to development

Sialic acids are a family of over 40 monosaccharides, derivatives of the nine-carbon sugar compound neuraminic acid. They occur in several different forms including glycoproteins and glycolipids, and are found in sugar chains attached to the surface of cells. In humans, the most common form of sialic acid is known as N-acetylneuraminic acid, or Neu5Ac, and is found mainly in brain or nervous system tissue.

Studies have shown that sialic acid has a role in the development of brain structure and pathways, so aiding neurological development in infants. It is also thought that sialic acids play a role in preventing infections by preventing infectious agents from adhering to cell membranes.

Formula + Sialic = A Better Start?

Breast milk contains large quantities of sialic acid and there is evidence that infants absorb sialic acid from their mother’s milk. Formula milk is made from cow’s milk, but unfortunately cow’s milk contains lower quantities of the sialic acid infants need — so sialic acid is added to infant formula milk.

The new method will help formula manufacturers determine sialic acid levels — which will help in the manufacturing and quality control of the sialic acid enriched milk. The method uses liquid chromatography linked to mass spectroscopy (UPLC-MS/MS) and was reported in the International Journal of Dairy Technology.

UPLC-MS/MS is a widely used technique in bio-research as discussed in this article, ‘Direct Analysis of Urinary Opioids and Metabolites by Mixed-mode µElution SPE Combined with UPLC/MS/MS for Clinical Research’

By adding sialic acid to formula milk, infants could get a better start in life — with chromatography’s help.