Breast milk tocopherol content and correlations with maternal diet
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Breast milk is universally recognized as the optimal food for infants up to the first 6 months of age. Over the past two decades, fat has been proven to be a critical component of breast milk, providing energy and important nutrients, which cannot be synthesized de novo by the infant. One of the critical components of human breast milk is the fat soluble vitamin E. Vitamin E does not consistently cross the placental barrier during pregnancy and should therefore be provided to infants after birth through breast milk. α-tocopherol is the most active form of vitamin E. It acts primarily as a lipid-soluble antioxidant, protecting polyunsaturated fatty acids and related substances from peroxidation and thus, from rancidity; additionally vitamin E is involved in modulating immune function, affects cell signalling and regulates gene expression. In this review the available information about the factors determining breast milk tocopherol content are summarized. With a few exceptions, neither excessive micronutrient supplies, nor a moderate deficiency in the mother's diet, significantly alter tocopherol supply to the infant. It might be thus assumed that the infant is well protected by maternal homeostatic processes. Scientific data suggest that there are certain nutritional characteristics, such as total fat intake or certain supplementations, i.e. multivitamins that lead to an increase on the concentrations of α-tocopherol in breast milk.