Nutritional and metabolic consequences of the early Maillard reaction of heat treated milk in the pig. Significance for man.

Background: During the processing of foods, the Maillard reaction may occur contributing to altering the nutritional value of proteins. In dairy products the formation of lactuloselysine reduces the availability of lysine but the effects on the other nutrients are not very well known.

Aim Of The Study: Determination of the consequences of a high level of lactuloselysine in milk on the bioavailability of skim milk nutrients and the kinetics of their appearance in the portal blood and of their urinary and faecal excretions and extrapolation to lower heat treatments and to man, using the pig model.

Methods: Sub-adult pigs were fitted, under anaesthesia, with permanent catheters in the portal vein, carotid artery and urethra, and with an electromagnetic flow probe around the portal vein. Each animal was successively fed with two experimental meals containing an equal amount of dried skim milk (SM), either lyophilised or heat treated to obtain an intense Maillard reaction, (M-SM) resulting in a 50% lysine blockage. Portal and arterial concentrations and flux of individual amino acids (AA), glucose, galactose and fructoselysine were measured for a period of 12h after the meals. Lysine, fructoselysine and AA excreted in the urine and faeces within 72h were also determined.

Results: In M-SM containing 50% blocked lysine, no other AA was chemically modified. Fructoselysine appeared in the portal blood very late compared to amino acids resulting from a very slow release and corresponded to 8.2 and 18.6% of the ingested amount after 12 and 72h, respectively. Significant changes of the appearance in the portal blood were observed only for lysine (-60%), alanine (-17%) and cystine (+37%). A small decrease in the digestibility of most AA during the same period was observed, which was significant after 48h for lysine, phenylalanine, cystine, aspartic acid, glycine and total AA (-6%).

Conclusion: It was confirmed that lactuloselysine was not bioavailable. The loss in protein nutritive value was mainly due and proportional to the deterioration of lysine and, to a lesser extent, to the decrease in the digestibility of some essential AA. Taking into account the very high level of lactuloselysine in the M-SM sample studied, it may be concluded that in common foods such as milk, infant formulas, biscuits, bread, pasta, containing lower levels of blocked lysine, the nutritional loss is primarily due to the loss of lysine and to a less extent to the decrease in the digestibility of other essential AA.