Sunday July 29, 2007
Moo-ving innovation
By LOH FOON FONG
Innovations for better health are always good. One company in the Netherlands has been researching cow’s milk for almost 15 years. The Star was invited to visit its research centre to look at one area of research they’re working on.
DR Mirjam Govers proudly shows the simulator gut that her company has invented.
The function of the simulator, used for testing milk products, is linked to a computer. When information is keyed into the computer, the simulator will function like a baby’s or adult’s gut as programmed.
“We use the machine to test our products, and animal trials are not required for safety and tolerance tests,” said Govers, R&D Communications director at Royal Numico Research in Wageningen, the Netherlands.
“We don’t mimic the whole length of the intestine but the total time of exposure to milk products,” she said adding that it takes four hours for food to move from the stomach to the intestines.
Most of the company’s business is focussed on baby products, but research is also being carried out on clinical nutrition for patients with special food needs such as those suffering from cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and HIV infection and babies on tubes, she said.
The simulator is one of the technologies used in food and nutrition technology.
If there are any digestive problems for babies observed through the simulator’s function, the milk will be removed and feedback will be provided to scientists to recreate the ingredients, Govers said.
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Dr Mirjam Govers, director of R&D Communications at Royal Numico Research in Wageningen, the Netherlands, showing the simulator gut that is used to test milk products. |
Oligosaccharides
While Numico acknowledged that mothers’ milk is best, its management thinks that there is still a market for formulas for babies who could not have mothers’ milk for one reason or another.
Studies show that breast fed babies have much higher resistance against infections and allergies compared with cow’s milk, and oligosaccharides in mothers’ milk have a role in contributing to the difference, Govers said.
Oligosacaccharides in human milk are made up of 90% short chain galacto-oligosaccharides and 10% long chain fructo-oligosaccharides, she said.
The good bacteria in the gut easily digest the short chain molecules, but not the small percentage of long chain molecules.
The long chain molecules ferment when they enter the large bowel, and scientists at the company have this hypothesis – the good bacteria will grow in numbers as they are being fed, but as they move down the gut, they need more to eat and the long chain molecule food provides nutrition to the bacteria, she said.
If there are no long chain molecules, the healthy bacteria will grow but will subsequently decrease in numbers, she said.
“We are still discovering and identifying functional ingredients in mothers’ milk ... That’s important because nutrition in the early life of a baby has huge impact on his or her later life,” she said.
Boosting amounts
Immunology research manager at Numico Research Prof Dr Johan Garssen said cow’s milk has only traces of oligosaccharides while human milk has enormous amounts – even more than its protein content.
Based on scientific literature, oligosaccharides act as prebiotics (induction of a “healthy” gut flora) and modulate the immune system, he said.
To boost the amount of oligosaccharides in cow’s milk formulations, he said they derive the substance from chicory (a vegetable) and lactose.
Garssen said the company is at an early stage of discovering the possibility of oligosaccharides being used for adults with autoimmunity diseases.
Immune disorders can be divided into hyper (too high) immune-responsiveness or hypo (too low) immune-responsiveness. In hyper cases, they can manifest as allergies, auto-immunities and chronic inflammatory diseases while in hypo cases, symptoms such as infections and tumours/metastasis can be seen, he said.
From their research, it was found that oligosaccharides and prebiotics were compounds with immunological properties found in mothers’ milk, said Garssen.
Before milk is analysed through the simulator gut, scientists at the research centre incubate cells with food ingredients to see how they affect the immune system.
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Research manager in Immunology at Numico Research Prof Dr Johan Garssen said cow’s milk has only traces of oligosaccharides while human milk has enormous amounts – even more than its protein content. |
The number of the good and the bad bacteria are calculated through the use of a programme written by a staff member who has qualifications in microbiology and information and communication technology.
“Parents should avoid giving solid food to babies below six months to avoid any allergic response,” advised Nauta, who breastfed her baby boy, who is now 13-month-old, for six months.
She also encouraged parents to let their children play with soil to boost their immune system. It was found that farmers’ children are less likely to fall sick or get infection because they often touch soil, she said.
Prebiotic function
The company’s R&D director Dr Jaques Bindels said mothers’ milk does not contain probiotic bacteria but contains oligosaccharides that seem to have a prebiotic function.
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Numico R&D director Dr Jaques Bindels said mothers’ milk does not contain probiotic bacteria but contains oligosacaccharides which seem to have a prebiotic function. |
Oligosaccharides improved faecal flora in newborn babies. The amount of bifidus and lactobacillus increased while the other bad bacteria decreased, he quoted a study.
Breastfed infants had hardly any E. coli or bacteroides in their stools in the first 20 days of birth while stools from formula fed infants showed 50% of the total faecal microorganisms were E. coli and 40% were bacteroides in the first three days, he said.
Although the presence of both bacteria dropped to less than 10% on the eighth day, bacteroides increased to 35% on the 20th day, he said.
For breastfed babies, the presence of bifidobacteria in the stools was as high as 80% to 90% on the 20th day but was only half or one-third in stools of cow’s milk-fed babies, he said.
On whether there could be an overdose of oligosaccharides added in cow’s milk, Bindels said since most breastfed babies have high levels of the bifidobacteria that feed on oligosaccharides, there should be no issue of overdose.
Breastfed babies also have consistently soft stools while babies on instant formulas have harder stools. However, when prebiotics were added, they were soft enough, he said.
Numico has 225 scientists and technologists, and besides Wageningen, its other research centres are located in Friedrichsdorf (Germany) Liverpool (Britain) and Adelaide (Australia).
Founded in 1896, it was known as Nutricia then.
Note: The World Health Organisation recommends that babies be breastfed for two years.
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