Nutritional and nutraceutical properties of goat milk for human health: A review

Abstract

Milk are considered as the best source of nutrients in well balanced ratio, and it also performs a number of beneficial biological activities in the human body that improves digestive system, metabolic activities to ingested nutrients, organ’s growth maintenance, development and resistance against diseases. Goats are considered to be the oldest domestic animals, domesticated for meat and milk and are known as the poor man's animal. Goat milk is nature's closest thing to perfect food. The constituent and composition of goat milk is totally different from cow or buffalo milk. Goat milk is nutritionally more or less matches to human milk which is not very much similar to cow's milk. It also possesses lots of medicinal properties. Lactose intolerance patients will be benefited from goat milk because it has less lactose than human and cow milk. It contains proteins, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, trace elements and enzymes that can be easily assimilated in our body. Smaller and uniform fat globules of goat milk make them easily digestible in the body. It contains higher selenium concentration which acts on regeneration of blood platelet suffering from dengue fever. Protein content in goat milk is lower than cow milk and is easily digestible when compared to cow or buffalo milk. Taurine is present in goat milk which has inhibitory effect on hypertension, cardiovascular disease and synthesizes essential amino acids in human body. Asthma, anemia, stomach ulcers, constipation, sleeplessness, and neurotic indigestion have all been shown to be treated with goat milk. The goal of this review is to look at the differences in goat milk composition from cow and human milk, as well as the nutraceutical benefits on human health.