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REVIEW article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1446565
This article is part of the Research Topic Dietary Protein for Human Health View all 20 articles

Amino acid requirements of the infant: the amino acid composition of human breast milk

Provisionally accepted
Paul Moughan Paul Moughan 1*Amelie Deglaire Amelie Deglaire 2Yalu Yan Yalu Yan 3Philip Wescombe Philip Wescombe 4Janice Lim Janice Lim 1Natascha Stroebinger Natascha Stroebinger 1Suzanne Hodgkinson Suzanne Hodgkinson 1
  • 1 Riddet Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
  • 2 Institut Agro Rennes-Angers, Rennes, Brittany, France
  • 3 Inner Mongolia Dairy Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
  • 4 Independent researcher, New Zealand, New Zealand

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The recommended amino acid requirements of the infant are based on the amino acid composition of mature human breast milk. The amino acid composition of breast milk is usually determined following either acid or alkaline (for tryptophan) hydrolysis. For accuracy, however, the known effect of hydrolysis time on amino acid composition should be accounted for. Also, ideally the amino acid composition of breast milk should be given in units of digested (assumed to be absorbed) amino acids. A review of the literature is presented which gives mean total amino acid concentrations in mature human milk (n=26 studies), mean hydrolysis correction factors (n=3 studies) and mean true ileal amino acid digestibility coefficients (n=3 studies, suckling piglet). There were differences between the estimates of amino acid concentration corrected for hydrolysis time and digestibility, and current FAO (2013) recommendations that were not corrected for these factors. The values based on the published literature up until 2023 (mg/g true protein) corrected for hydrolysis time and digestibility gave higher values (more than 16% higher) for leucine, lysine and threonine, and considerably higher values (greater than 30%) for histidine and tryptophan. Current recommendations may need revision.

    Keywords: breast milk, human milk, human milk protein, Indispensable amino acid, infant nutrition, Lactation, Protein hydrolysis, True ileal amino acid digestibility

    Received: 10 Jun 2024; Accepted: 28 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Moughan, Deglaire, Yan, Wescombe, Lim, Stroebinger and Hodgkinson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Paul Moughan, Riddet Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

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