48-6 |
The genetic basis for the functional and nutritional aspects of milk |
J. B. GERMAN, Food Science & Technology Dept., Univ. of California, Davis, 212 Food Science & Technology, Davis, CA 95616-5270 Mammalian milks have long been regarded as providing superior nutritional value due to their content of essential nutrients. However, mammals evolved under a strong Darwinian selection in which milk was the sole source of food for newborns, and recent research is revealing that much of milk's unique nutritional value derives from non-essential molecules that presumably arose in response to this evolutionary selective pressure. Recognized to date are proteins, peptides, glycoproteins, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and complex phospholipids, glycolipids, glycerides and nucleotides with unique structures and emerging bioactivities. With the discovery of these molecules investigators have begun to assign to these milk components functions that were previously unknown, including as examples, the inhibition of deleterious intestinal bacteria and the stimulation of beneficial bacteria, the binding and increased absorption of nutrients and yet the binding and elimination of toxins, the stimulation and maturation of intestinal cells and the education of the immune system. We are now faced with the opportunity to more fully understand the functional values that have been instilled by millennia of selective evolution on milk as a nutritious and protective food. The arrival of the human genome provides the enabling knowledge and technologies to establish via genetic and structure/function tools a greater understanding of how milk provides its unusual health properties. This understanding of how a single food can provide nourishment, maturation and protection, will serve as a blueprint for the future of nutritionally improved foods.
Session 48, Dairy foods: More than just good nutrition
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