Publications by authors named "Alastair K MacGibbon"

Background/objectives: Emulsified lipids, with central lipid core surrounded by polar lipid 'protective coat', have been proposed to stimulate the ileal brake, alter appetite, food intake and aid weight control. In addition to lipid composition, emulsion particle size may contribute to efficacy with small droplets providing a larger surface area for gastrointestinal (GI) lipase action and larger droplets prolonging and delaying digestion in the GI tract. Tube feeding studies delivering emulsions directly into the small intestine show clear effects of smaller particle size on appetite and food intake, but evidence from oral feeding studies is sparse.

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Gangliosides (GA) are found in animal tissues and fluids, such as blood and milk. These sialo-glycosphingolipids have bioactivities in neural development, the gastrointestinal tract, and the immune system. In this study, a high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) method was validated to characterize and quantitate the GA in beef, chicken, pork, and fish species (turbot, snapper, king salmon, and island mackerel).

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Article Synopsis
  • Gangliosides are essential for brain development and are provided through human breast milk, which is crucial for infants.
  • A study measured ganglioside concentrations in the breast milk of Chinese mothers over 8 months, finding an increase from 13.1 mg/l in the first month to 20.9 mg/l by the eighth month.
  • This research is significant as it is the first to detail the distribution of individual ganglioside species in breast milk through lactation, highlighting changes in concentrations of specific molecular species, particularly GM(3) and GD(3).
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Selective breeding has strongly reduced the genetic diversity in livestock species, and contemporary breeding practices exclude potentially beneficial rare genetic variation from the future gene pool. Here we test whether important traits arising by new mutations can be identified and rescued in highly selected populations. We screened milks from 2.

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The objective of this study was to estimate heritability and crossbreeding parameters (breed and heterosis effects) of various fatty acid (FA) concentrations in milk fat of New Zealand dairy cattle. For this purpose, calibration equations to predict concentration of each of the most common FAs were derived with partial least squares (PLS) using mid-infrared (MIR) spectral data from milk samples (n=850) collected in the 2003-04 season from 348 second-parity crossbred cows during peak, mid and late lactation. The milk samples produced both, MIR spectral data and concentration of the most common FAs determined using gas chromatography (GC).

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Milk fat is a natural product containing essential nutrients as well as fatty acids and other food factors with reported anti-cancer potential. Here bovine milk fat was tested for its ability to inhibit the growth of breast and colon cancers and their metastasis to the lung and liver; either alone or in combination with the chemotherapeutic agent paclitaxel. A diet containing 5% typical anhydrous milk fat (representing ~70% of the total dietary fat component) fed to Balb/c mice delayed the appearance of subcutaneous 4T1 breast and CT26 colon cancer tumours and inhibited their metastasis to the lung and liver, when compared to the control diet containing soybean oil as the only fat component.

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Background: High fat diets have long been associated with weight gain and obesity, and the weak satiety response elicited in response to dietary lipids is likely to play a role. Suppression of appetite and food intake has consistently been shown to be diminished with high fat relative to either high protein or carbohydrate meals. There is however some evidence that the satiating capacity of lipids may be modulated when physicochemical properties are altered, but studies investigating the effect of lipid saturation on appetite have generated inconsistent findings.

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Free fatty acids and monoglycerides released from milkfat by partial pregastric lipase-catalysed hydrolysis are bactericidal towards Helicobacter pylori. Two milkfat preparations were investigated: a normal bovine milkfat, and a fractionated milkfat preparation, termed ModFat, enriched in triglycerides containing short- and medium-chain fatty acids. The released products were tested for bactericidal potency against H.

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