Abstract

This study was done to determine the trans fatty acid (tFA) composition of human milk from postpartum to sixth months after delivery, to investigate the tFA intake of lactating women, and to estimate the intakes of tFA by infants exclusively fed breast milk. A total of 27 lactating Korean women participated to this study voluntarily, gave their breast milk, and responded to an investigation of their diets. The lactating women consumed 2.3-2.8 g/d of tFAs over the period of the first, second, third, and sixth months postpartum, which was 3.4-4.9% of the total fat intake and 0.8%-1.2% of the total energy intake. The proportions of tFAs in the breast milk were 1.89% in colostrum, 1.78% in transitional milk, and 1.78-2.25 in mature milk of the first, second, third, and sixth months postpartum. The tFAs of the breast milk identified in this study were C16:1n9t, C18:1n9t, C18:2n6t12t, C18:2 n6t12c, C18:2n6c12t and C18:2n6t11t. Among them, C18:1n9t was predominant, which made up 59.26% of all tFAs in colostrum, 62.36% in transitional milk, and 64.42% in mature milk. The proportion of total tFA was unchanged with time, although some significant differences were noted for individual tFAs. The percentages of C18:2n6t12c and C18:2n6c12t decreased over the study period. Estimated tFA intake of the exclusively breast-fed infants was 0.18 g/d when fed colostrum, 0.29 g/d when fed transitional milk, and 0.53 g/d when fed mature milk until the sixth month of postpartum. Those were 0.5%, 0.8%, and 1.1% of the total energy intake. The results in this study indicate that lactating Korean women consume not a large quantity of tFAs, secrete breast milk not containing much tFA, and the estimated intake of tFAs by infants fed exclusively breast milk is not great.

• Keywords: trans fatty acids; breast milk; infant; lactating women