Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Light On Riboflavin And Ascorbic Acid In Freshly Expressed Human Milk, Jimi Francis, Darby Dickton

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Millions of dollars each year is spent funding dairy research to better understand every aspect of milk processing, storage, handling, and shelf life. The dairy industry has shown that in animal milks vitamin C is photo-oxidized when exposed to light, which can cause a cascade of other nutrients that may be affected. Expressed human breast milk has had limited research published, mainly recommendations for storage duration secondary to bacterial growth, with scant research on nutrient quality during handling compared to the animal models. In this study, freshly expressed human milk was placed in containers of varying color/UV sensitivity and exposed …