Milk and dairy products are a major source of minerals, particularly calcium, involved in several metabolic functions in humans. Currently, several dairy products are enriched with calcium to prevent osteoporosis. The development of an inexpensive and fast quantitative analysis for minerals is required to offer dairy farmers an opportunity to improve the added value of the produced milk. The aim of this study was to develop 5 equations to measure Ca, K, Mg, Na, and P contents directly in bovine milk using mid-infrared (MIR) spectrometry. A total of 1,543 milk samples were collected between March 2005 and May 2006 from 478 cows during the Walloon milk recording and analyzed by MIR spectrometry. Using a principal component approach, 62 milk samples were selected by their spectral variability and separated in 2 calibration sets. Five outliers were detected and deleted. The mineral contents of the selected samples were measured by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. Using partial least squares combined with a repeatability file, 5 calibration equations were built to estimate the contents of Ca, K, Mg, Na, and P in milk. To assess the accuracy of the developed equations, a full cross-validation and an external validation were performed. The cross-validation coefficients of determination (R 2 cv) were 0.80, 0.70, and 0.79 for Ca, Na, and P, respectively (n = 57), and 0.23 and 0.50 for K and Mg, respectively (n = 31). Only Ca, Na, and P equations showed sufficient R 2 cv for a potential application. These equations were validated using 30 new milk samples. The validation coefficients of determination were 0.97, 0.14, and 0.88 for Ca, Na, and P, respectively, suggesting the potential to use the Ca and P calibration equations. The last 30 samples were added to the initial milk samples and the calibration equations were rebuilt. The R 2 cv for Ca, K, Mg, Na, and P were 0.87, 0.36, 0.65, 0.65, and 0.85, respectively, confirming the potential utilization of the Ca and P equations. Even if new samples should be added in the calibration set, the first results of this study showed the feasibility to quantify the calcium and phosphorus directly in bovine milk using MIR spectrometry.

Cow's milk can be used as a potential source of equol in the human diet. In order to study human intake, however, it is necessary to develop a reliable and sensitive analytical method. This paper reports on the validation of an analytical method using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a tandem mass spectrometry detector to quantify the equol in commercial milks (raw, whole, semi-skimmed, and skimmed milk). The equol was initially released using enzymatic hydrolysis, and it was then extracted using a double liquid/liquid extraction. The analytical method produced a linear calibration curve with a high correlation coefficient (R 2 ≥0.996) between 5 and 1,000 ng.mL -1 . Good intra-and inter-day precision (≤5.3% and≤5.2%, respectively) and accuracy (≤8.6%) were achieved. The recovery rate differed slightly among the different types of milk, ranging between 60.6± 1.09% and 82.3±5.21%. Good method repeatability was observed (≤15%). There was neither matrix effect nor carry-over effect, and the sample extracts were stable for at least 7 days of storage at -21 °C and 5 °C. The method proved to be specific, sensitive, precise, and accurate and was used for the first time to quantify the equol content in Belgian commercial cow's milk. In all the samples analyzed, equol was present at a concentration ≥10 ng.mL -1 and had a significantly higher content in organic than in conventional milk. The study also found that the mean concentrations of equol were similar for each type of commercial conventional cow's milk.

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This paper provides an update and comprehensive review of the analytical methods used for quantifying isoflavones and their metabolites in cow’s milk. Isoflavones are secondary plant metabolites that are similar to 17 β-estradiol in chemical structure. They form one of the most common categories of phytoestrogens. Numerous health benefits have been attributed to isoflavones, but many of these compounds are also considered to be endocrine disruptors, with adverse effects on health. These contradictory trends offer an attractive prospect for future research, and therefore, sensitive and reliable analytical methods are required to clarify various issues about isoflavones. For this review, a structured methodology was used to select 26 relevant articles published between 2005 and 2015 from the Scopus and CAB Abstract databases. The review discusses individual steps of the analytical procedures described in these articles, including sample preparation, instrumental analysis and validation. The most commonly used analytical procedure is sample preparation involving liquid-liquid extraction and an enzymatic hydrolysis step followed by liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry analysis. Currently, however, there is no standardized procedure for the sample preparation and analysis of isoflavones in milk.

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