New publication on essential fatty acids in donor human milk in the UK

PG research

Congratulations to FHSS PhD student Isabell Nessel who published part of her integrated PhD thesis in the Journal for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition last week.

The paper “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2-Centre Cross-Sectional Study” resulted from a collaboration between BU (Isabell Nessel, Prof Jane Murphy, Dr Simon Dyall – now at the University of Roehampton), Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Prof Minesh Khashu), and St. George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Dr Laura De Rooy) (1). Full text can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jpen.1773

This paper shows for the first time that donor human milk in the UK has very low levels of essential fatty acids, which are important for brain and eye development. Furthermore, donor human milk has higher lipid degradation than preterm and term breast milk. This could have important implications for preterm infant nutrition as exclusive unfortified donor human milk feeding might not be suitable long term and may contribute to the development of major neonatal morbidities.

This study followed from a narrative review Isabell and her supervisors Prof Minesh Khashu and Dr Simon Dyall published last year, which suggested that current human milk banking practices might have detrimental effects on essential fatty acid quality and quantity in donor human milk (2).

Isabell

inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Reference

  • Nessel, Isabell, et al. “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2‐Centre Cross‐Sectional Study.” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition(2020).
  • Nessel, Isabell, Minesh Khashu, and Simon C. Dyall. “The effects of storage conditions on long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, lipid mediators, and antioxidants in donor human milk–a review.” Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids(2019).

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