Free Glutamic Acid Content of Milk in Indian
Mothers
Poonam
Singh*, S. K. Saxena** and H. N. Mallick***
*
Department of Obstt. and Gynaecology,
Majeedia
Hospital, Hamdard Nagar,
New
Delhi,
** Food
and Research Analysis Centre,
Federation House, Tansen Marg,
New
Delhi – 110 001
and
***
Department of Physiology,
All
India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New
Delhi – 110 029
( Received on April 15, 2004)
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Abstract : Free amino acids levels in the milk of 11 healthy
Indian mothers were determined using automatic precolumn
derivatization procedure. The aim of the study was to find out the
relative concentration of glutamic acid and glutamine in the milk.
Glutamic acid is the dominant free amino acid found in the milk of
Indian mothers. Glutamic acid and glutamine together formed the
major nonessential amino acids present in the human milk. Although
glutamic acid has been shown to be the major amino acid in human
milk in many studies, to the best our knowledge, this is the first
report to confirm that glutamic acid is the most abundant amino
acid in milk in Indian mothers.
Key words : human
milk
free amino acid
glutamate glutamine
