Objective: To determine the free amino acid pool in plasma and milk in Mexican rural lactating women.
Methods: Twenty-eight women with an age 24 +/- 5.0 (+/- SD) years, weight 50 +/- 4.9 kg and height 148 +/- 4.8 cm were studied under metabolic balance conditions. Subjects were divided into five groups (three groups of lactation at 1st, 3rd and 6th month, one post-weaning group and a control group of non pregnant, non lactating women). Amino acid analyses of the diet and of plasma and milk samples were performed using an automated amino acid analyzer.
Results: Differences were observed between the lactation groups and the other groups: aspartate increased at the 6th month (p < 0.05) while leucine, valine and isoleucine declined in the 3rd month (p < 0.05). In milk, valine, proline and taurine decreased at 6 months (p < 0.05), while serine and threonine raised at 3 months. Plasma levels were > 4 fold greater than milk levels for branched chain amino acids and for the basic, aromatic and neutral amino acids. In contrast, glutamate was 40 fold higher in milk than plasma and it was the predominant amino acid in the free pool of milk.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the metabolic use of amino acids and the presence of specific amino acid transport systems during lactation, contribute to specific concentrations of free amino acids in milk that were not associated with the pool of free amino acids in plasma.