American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 39, 969-974, Copyright © 1984 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Evaluation of plasma tocopherols in relation to hematological indices of Brazilian infants on human milk and cows' milk regime from birth to 1 year of age

FE Martinez, SM Jorge, AL Goncalves and ID Desai

A study was carried out to evaluate the effects of a human milk and cows' milk regime on plasma tocopherols and hematological status of 176 Brazilian infants from birth to 12 months of age. Plasma total tocopherols and the ratio of tocopherols/total lipids were significantly higher (p less than 0.01) for breast-fed infants than for cows' milk-fed infants at all ages. Hydrogen peroxide-stimulated erythrocyte hemolysis was greater for cows' milk-fed infants than breast-fed infants; the difference was statistically significant (p less than 0.01) at 3, 6, and 9 months of age. Among the hematological indices examined, Hb levels were significantly higher (p less than 0.01) for the breast-fed infants at 3 and 12 months, while the reticulocyte counts were significantly higher for the cows' milk-fed infants at all ages; hematocrit values more or less remained similar for both groups. It is concluded from these results that although a human milk regime is ideal as compared to a cow's milk regime for maintaining adequate vitamin E status during the 1st year of early life, there may be other influencing factors besides vitamin E to explain such differences in the hematological indices of the breast-fed and cows' milk fed-Brazilian infants.