La importancia de los ingredientes funcionales en las leches y cereales infantiles / The importance of functional ingredients in pediatric milk formulas and cereals

La alimentación durante los primeros meses de vida tiene una influencia decisiva no sólo en las fases tempranas del desarrollo del niño sino también en su salud a largo plazo. Por ello, la incorporación de nuevos ingredientes funcionales a las leches infantiles es hoy objeto de numerosos estudios, dando cada vez productos más novedosos y semejantes a la leche humana, patrón de oro, que los contiene en forma natural. Hoy día, los avances tecnológicos han permitido la obtención de estos ingredientes a partir de fuentes de tipo animal o vegetal para su adición en leches y cereales infantiles. En el presente estudio se revisa el interés nutricional y funcional de los principales ingredientes funcionales de interés en la alimentación del lactante, como son los ácidos grasos poliinsaturados, b-palmitato, nucleótidos, oligosacáridos con efecto prebiótico, probióticos, carnitina y taurina. Su incorporación en los alimentos infantiles ha sido posible tras la realización de estudios en animales y estudios clínicos que proporcionan una sólida base científica que garantiza tanto su correcta biodisponibilidad como su eficacia en el recién nacido. En el futuro, gracias a un mayor conocimiento de la composición de la leche materna y a la realización de estudios adicionales será posible la incorporación de nuevos ingredientes que permitan la obtención de leches infantiles cada vez más similares a nivel nutricional y funcional a la leche materna (AU)

Feeding during the first months of life has a decisive influence not only in early developmental phases of children but also in their long-term health. Therefore, inclusion of new functional ingredients to pediatric milk formulas is, nowadays, the matter of a number of studies, incorporating day-by-day newer products and more similar to human milk, the gold standard, which contains them in a natural way. Nowadays, technological advances have made possible to obtain these ingredients from animal or vegetal sources for their addition into pediatric milk formulas and cereals. In the present article, the main functional ingredients, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, palmitate, nucleotides, preand probiotic oligosaccharides, carnitine and taurine are reviewed with regards to their nutritional and functional interest in infant feeding. Their incorporation in pediatric foods has been possible after carrying out animal and clinical studies that provide a solid scientific basis which guaranties their proper bioavailability and their efficacy in the newborn. In the future years, thanks to a better understanding of maternal milk composition and to the performance of further studies, it will be possible to add new ingredients that will allow to obtain pediatric milk formulas more and more similar to maternal milk from a nutritional and functional point of view (AU)

High-performance liquid chromatography with evaporative light-scattering detection for the determination of phospholipid classes in human milk, infant formulas and phospholipid sources of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.

We developed and validated a new high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the separation of phospholipid classes in human milk, infant formulas and phospholipidic sources of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) used in paediatric nutrition. Phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine and sphingomyelin were separated in less than 25 min using an Extrasil silica column (150 x 4.0 mm I.D., 3-microm particle size) by isocratic elution with a mixture of isopropanol-hexane-water. Phospholipids were determined by an evaporative light-scattering detector. Several chromatographic conditions were assayed to optimise the method, whose suitability is shown by the detection limits, linearity ranges and precision rates obtained. The main advantages of the proposed method are its speed and the direct determination of the main phospholipids present in human milk, infant formulas and the phospholipid sources of LC-PUFAs used in paediatric nutrition.