DHA in the plasma of four month old infants: influence of infant formula in the third and fourth months

Claudia Drossard, Jana Schwartz, Katharina Dube, Mathilde Kersting, Dortmund; Frank Kannenberg, Münster; Clemens Kunz, Gießen; Hermann Kalhoff, Dortmund

The long chain polyunsaturated n3 fatty acid DHA plays an important role in the development of the infant brain and retina. In Germany, more and more infant formulas are being enriched with LC-PUFA, taking human milk as a standard. To compare the fatty acid intake and plasma concentrations in infants fed different kinds of milk, 103 healthy term infants in the DINO study were retrospectively classified into three groups, according to the kind of milk they had been fed in the third and fourth month of life:

breast milk , enriched formula (SMN+, n = 15), formula without LC-PUFA (SMN-, n = 15). In comparison to breast fed infants, infants in the SMN+ group exhibited similar plasma levels of DHA relative to total fatty acids, but had significantly lower absolute levels. Infants in the SMN- group exhibited the lowest level of plasma DHA, but may have benefitted from the small ratio of LA/ALA in the formula. This ratio possibly could have favoured the synthesis of n3 LC-PUFA during periods when the requirement for DHA was high, although the availability was low.

Keywords: LC PUFA, n3-fatty acids, DHA, infant formula, breast milk

Sie finden den Artikel in deutscher Sprache in Ernährungs Umschau 07/10 ab Seite 364.