Effects of fatty acid sources on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and other fatty acids in dairy milk

Abstract

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is aniticarcinogenic, antiatherogenic and antidiabetogenic actives. Research has therefore focused on methods of increasing CLA content in milk fat. Amount of CLA in milk fat was highly related to biohydrogenation of unsaturated fatty acid of rumen microbes. (Bauman et al., 1999). Linoleic acid (C18:2) were the precursors of CLA synthesis. The CLA was also synthesized in the mammary gland of lactating ruminants, using oleic acid (C18:1) as a precursor and activity of delta 9-desaturase (Griinari and Bauman, 1999). Linoleic acid is high in soybean oil (SO) (54.4%) and tuna oil (TO) (20.3%) while oleic acid is high in pork oil (PO) (43.5%) and groundnut oil (GO) (40.7%). Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to compare the increasing of CLA and fatty acid composition in milk fat form cows fed dietary oils obtained from either animal or plant sources.