April 2001 - Breastmilk may help babies - particularly
premature babies - protect themselves from oxidative stress, which
is linked to respiratory distress syndrome, hemorrhages, eye disorders
and other problems. And researchers have discovered that breastmilk
has twice the levels of protective antioxidants than commercial
formula, and that there is no difference between the amount of
antioxidants in breastmilk of mothers who delivered prematurely and
those who delivered full-term.
Researchers from Memorial Hospital in St. John's in Newfoundland
presented their findings at the Experimental Biology 2001 meeting in
Orlando, Florida this month. They compared the breastmilk of 28 women
who had delivered pre-term to 17 women who delivered full-term and
tested the antioxidant protection levels of all the milk samples over
the course of several weeks by exposing them to high levels of free
radicals.
The antioxidant protection levels did not change from week to week,
and there was no difference between the milk of mothers who delivered
pre-term and those who delivered full-term.
Antioxidant protection is especially important in premature infants,
because their lungs and immune systems are often not as developed a
full-term infants, leaving them unable to cope with the stress that
oxygen free radicals can cause.
The researchers tried to enhance both breastmilk and formula with more
antioxidant enzymes and found that when they added antioxidants found
in breastmilk to formula, the formula offered better protection
against free radicals. However, the additional enzymes did not
successfully increase the antioxidant protection of breastmilk.
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