>
> Now that the silly season is upon us, may I venture to air the
> following question:
> A GP phoned last Friday. A 32 year old non-pregnant female had
> presented with a bottle containing what she claimed was her own
> breast milk. At this stage the GP is not interested in investigating
> galactorrhoea, but would like to establish whether the sample is
> truly her breast milk (as opposed to cow's milk etc). The GP says
> the sample "does not smell like breast milk" but, not being an expert
> in these matters, I am unable to comment. The sample is slightly
> pink, and appears to contain blood, but has not been tested for
> anything yet.
>
> Any suggestions please?
>
Steve,
As an Ex Food Scientist I can give you some pointers to the composition of
various types of milk including human. The Bible on matters of food
composition is a tome written by R.A. McCance and E.M. Widdowson and is
titled "The Composition of foods". A quick glance at my 1960 volume
indicates quite a few differences in composition e.g.Mature human milk has a
much higher fat content 3.7g per 100g (whole) 0.2g per 100g (skimmed) (semi
is probably in between) cf 3.7 (transitional human milk), 5.1 (mature).
Perhaps the most striking difference is in the sodium and potassium
concentrations.
Cows
Na 50 mg/100g K 160 mg/100g Whole
Na 52 mg/100g K 166 mg/100g Skimmed
Humans
Na 48 mg/100g K 68 mg/100g Transitional
K 15 mg/100g K 52 mg/100g Mature
Also protein is much lower in human compared with cows milk
3.4 g/100g WHole
3.5 g/100g Skimmed
2.0 g/100g Transitional
1.2 g/100g Mature
I think on the basis of these results we could compute some sort of
algorithim for the determination of Human and Cows milk. Maybe Martin
Holland could produce a "capsule" for us !
Craig Webster
Senior Clinical Biochemist
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