Iron content and its speciation in human milk from mothers of preterm and full-term infants at early stages of lactation: A comparison with commercial infant milk formulas

In vivo study of the effect of lactoferrin on iron metabolism and bioavailability from different iron chemical species for formula milk fortification

“…In fact, 77% of total iron was found associated to transferrin in the maternal group. This important fact was not observed in the other groups, where the percentage of total iron in transferrin was always lower than 10% (that is, probably Fe speciation in maternal milk is clearly different to that in formulas ). A remarkable amount of iron was found bound to albumin in all the assayed groups.…”

“…It was suggested that lactoferrin (Lf), a major protein in human milk, could enhance iron absorption in the small intestine of infants . More recently, human milk studies have shown that iron is attached to lactoferrin apart from other proteins . Despite those encouraging facts, very few studies on the influence of lactoferrin in actual iron absorption in humans have been conducted so far .…”

Atomic spectrometry update: Review of advances in the analysis of clinical and biological materials, foods and beverages

“…A comparison of the Fe speciation and concentrations between human milk and infant formula indicated some differences. 115 The total Fe content of pre-term and full-term human milk samples was 0.5 and 0.4 mg mL À1 , contrasting with 9.5 and 6.0 mg mL À1 for the corresponding formulas, highlighting bio-fortication in formula milk as a compensation for reduced bioavailability. This was explained by Fe fractionation studies using SEC-ICP-MS: human milk protein fractions of high M r (430-160 kDa) from colostrum and transitional milk were shown to contain more than 75% of the total Fe, corresponding to immunoglobulins (Ig) A and G with a small proportion in colostrum being ascribed to IgM (>600 kDa) and an even smaller amount associated with M r 90-70 kDa proteins (lactoferrin, transferrin and serum albumin).…”

Kinetics of Iron Import into Developing Mouse Organs Determined by a Pup-swapping Method

“…The iron in breast milk is highly bioavailable and is associated with immunoglobulins, including lactoferrin (34,35). During nursing, some lactoferrin is not digested as it travels into the blood and binds to macrophages (35).…”