Application of industrial treatments to donor human milk: influence of pasteurization treatments, storage temperature, and time on human milk gangliosides

Donor milk treatment: key nutrients preserved after pasteurization Donor human milk, the best alternative to mother’s own milk, usually needs to be pasteurized before use out of safety concerns. Daniela Barile at University of California Davis, USA, and colleagues studied the effects of heat treatment and storage temperature and time on milk gangliosides, a class of sugar-derived compounds important for neural and brain development of newborns, among other bioactivities. They found that, while there were minor structural changes during mimicked industrial pasteurization processes, gangliosides remain stable for at least three months either in the refrigerator or at room temperature. These results may help standardize the processing protocols and storage conditions for donor milk, and the methods can be extended to other bioactive components