Abstract
Choline is critical for infant development and mother’s milk is the sole source of choline for fully breastfed infants until six months of age. Human milk choline consists to 85% of water-soluble forms of choline including free choline (FC), phosphocholine (PhosC), and glycerophosphocholine (GPC). Donor milk requires safe handling procedures such as cold storage and pasteurization. However, the stability of water-soluble forms of choline during these processes is not known. The objectives of this research were to determine the effect of storage and pasteurization on milk choline concentration, and the diurnal intra- and inter-individual variability of water-soluble choline forms. Milk samples were collected from healthy women who were fully breastfeeding a full-term, singleton infant <6 months. Milk total water-soluble forms of choline, PhosC, and GPC concentrations did not change during storage at room temperature for up to 4 h. Individual and total water-soluble forms of choline concentrations did not change after storage for 24 h in the refrigerator or for up to one week in the household freezer. Holder pasteurization decreased PhosC and GPC, and thereby total water-soluble choline form concentrations by <5%. We did not observe diurnal variations in PhosC and total water-soluble forms of choline concentrations, but significant differences in FC and GPC concentrations across five sampling time points throughout one day. In conclusion, these outcomes contribute new knowledge for the derivation of evidence-informed guidelines for the handling and storage of expressed human milk as well as the development of optimized milk collection and storage protocols for research studies.
Highlights
Choline is an essential nutrient with crucial roles in brain function, neurodevelopment, and growth [1,2]
Betaine contributes to the generation of S-adenosylmethionine, which is the main methyl donor involved in creatine and phosphatidylcholine synthesis, and DNA methylation, among other biochemical reactions [7]
The objectives of this research were to determine the effect of cold storage and pasteurization on the concentrations of water-soluble forms of choline in human milk, and to determine the intra- and inter-individual variability of water-soluble forms of choline concentrations in human milk within a day
Summary
Choline is an essential nutrient with crucial roles in brain function, neurodevelopment, and growth [1,2]. Nutrients 2019, 11, 3024 form of acetylcholine, membrane biogenesis, cell division, lipid transports, and myelination in the form of choline phospholipids, and as a methyl donor in the form of its oxidation product betaine [3,4,5,6]. Human milk contains various forms of the essential nutrient choline. The three water-soluble forms of choline, i.e., free choline (FC), phosphocholine (PhosC), and glycerophosphocholine (GPC), contribute to approximately 85% of total choline in human milk; the lipid-soluble phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin account for the remaining 15% [9,10,11,12,13]
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