Dairy industry-funded research in milk bioactives leads to multi-disciplinary study on health of premature infants
Milk bioactives are defined as a food component that brings about a physiological effect on a specific process beyond that of providing nutrients. CDRF, an early investor in UC Davis’ Milk Bioactives Program, recognizes that new technologies, mechanistic animal studies and human clinical trials are all required to translate the benefits of bioactivities. In 2006, Dairy Management, Inc. helped expand this program with national dairy funding.
Milk bioactives research provides tools to better understand the biology of milk composition and the effects of milk consumption on health. For example, UC Davis professors Carlito Lebrilla of the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine; David Mills, a microbiologist in the Department of Viticulture and Enology; and J. Bruce German, of the Department of Food Science and Technology, collaborated in research determining that milk oligosaccharides are prebiotic (food for beneficial gut bacteria).
That project paved the way for a ground-breaking study to determine the best cocktail of pre- and probiotic supplements to give to premature infants to prevent a deadly intestinal disease called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), the third-leading cause of death among preemies.
“It would be wonderful to be able to find a way to prevent this debilitating disease in infants, and we believe that probiotics are a safe and effective way to do that,” said study co-principal investigator Mark Underwood, an assistant clinical professor of neonatology at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
The study is funded by a five-year, $3 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Researchers also will identify the role that “defensins,” protein-like molecules that act as natural antibiotics in the body, play in NEC. Defensins are found in every species of plant and animal and, in humans, on the skin, in white blood cells, and the linings of the surfaces of the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, intestines, lungs and urinary tract.
The study is unique because it will combine the expertise of neonatolo-gists at UC Davis Children’s Hospital with the expertise of professors German, Mills, Lebrilla and others from the UC Davis campus who specialize in research on the bacteria enriched by human milk.
“The beauty of this collaboration is that we can go from fundamental research to clinical trials quickly because we have all the expertise at UC Davis,” Lebrilla said.
Lebrilla, a chemist, identified the prebiotics in human milk, called oligosaccharides, and described their structure. Mills found that these sugars stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria, called bifidobacteria, in the intestine. Bifidobacteria normally flourish in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy breast-fed infants.
“Certain bifidobacteria are amazingly adept at breaking down and consuming these complex oligosaccharides from milk,” Mills said.
In the study, preemies in the UC Davis Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit will receive the oligosaccharides and two different types of bifidobacteria twice a day from birth until their discharge from the hospital. Researchers will examine saliva and other specimens to see what dose, type and combination of the pre- and probiotics work best to grow healthy bacteria.
The interest in this area of research does not stop at the national level, but continues with cooperation through the IMGC (International Milk Genomics Consortium).
More than 20 countries have participated in the IMGC Annual Symposiums to discuss the potentials of milk bioactivity on an international level. The IMGC web portal integrates milk genomics data from numerous sources. The benefit to IMGC members is that the results from this information will lead to tremendous opportunities for future nutritive-based dairy ingredients.
