Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the differences in human milk fatty acid composition in relation to maternal allergy within a large birth cohort study using statistical methods accounting for the correlations that exist in compositional data. We observed marginal differences in human milk fatty acid composition of allergic and non-allergic mothers. However, our results do not support the hypothesis that human milk fatty acid composition is influenced by allergy or that it differs between mothers with or without allergy. Observed differences in our results between transformed and untransformed fatty acid data call for re-evaluation of previous, as well as future, studies using statistical methods appropriate for compositionality of fatty acid data.
Highlights
Human milk contains a variety of nutrients, immunological and biological components necessary for growth and development of infants [1]
Of the 970 mothers enrolled into the SPATZ study, we included 475 lactating mothers with human milk samples available at both 6 weeks and 6 months
We investigated the associations between individual Centered log ratio (CLR)-transformed fatty acids with asthma, hay fever and atopic dermatitis
Summary
Human milk contains a variety of nutrients, immunological and biological components necessary for growth and development of infants [1]. Several studies have found low concentrations of n-6 LCPUFAs in human milk of mothers with allergic disease [4,5,6], while other studies observed very little to no differences at all [1,7,8,9,10,11,12]. These studies compared human milk fatty acid composition of small subgroups, selected individuals or total fatty acids and did not account for existing correlations within compositional data. We aimed at determining the differences in human milk fatty acid composition in relation to maternal allergy within a large birth cohort using statistical methods accounting for the constant sum constraint
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