Horizons for Milk Products in a Healthy Diet

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Horizons for Milk Products in a Healthy Diet
Joseph ODonnell , Ph.D. California Dairy
Research Foundation Bruce German,
Ph.D. University of California, Davis Functional
Foods The Future of Asian Health January 21,
2005 Hong Kong
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The next phase of Nutrition, Protection,
Prevention, Metabolism

• Protection from infection, intolerance and
  exposure
• Prevention of health problems caused by small
  failures in metabolic regulation and
  inappropriate protection
• Metabolism maintained and supplied for optimal
  daily performance

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The Science of Diet and Health is moving forward

• Health versus Disease
• Why wait until we are sick?
• Health is about getting everything right
• Individuals versus Populations
• We are not all the same and we do not want to be
  the same!!!

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What Foods Serve as Models for Improved Health?

• Health
• Assume freedom from disease
• ?

DISEASE Diseases are defined by specific
pathologic criteria DIAGNOSTICS Determine
differences between diseased and healthy
TARGETS Discover molecules that act
on targets as therapeutic intervention
DRUGS
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Drugs used to treat Disease

• Plants evolved with the constant Darwinian
  selective pressure to avoid being eaten by
  growing animals
• Explore the Plant Kingdom for Bioactive Molecules
  to treat Disease
• Is this the right model for Health?

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Searching for Biologically Active Substances to
Make Healthy People Healthier

• Milk evolved to deliver nutrition and health to
  healthy growing mammals
• Solution Use Milk as a Research Model

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Nutritional Benefits of Milk

• Protection
• Milk fed infants have less infection, diarrhea
  and severity of pathogenic (viral and bacteria)
  disease
• Milk protects intestine from consequences of
  toxins, poisons and metals

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Nutritional Benefits of Milk

• Prevention
• Milk aids the intestinal immune system to
  recognize foreign pathogens
• Metabolic Performance
• Milk promotes the successful digestion,
  absorption and storage of nutrients
• Milk promotes the storage of energy appropriately
• Milk promotes the development of a healthy
  microflora

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Mammary Cells are metabolic machines arising from
Millennia of Evolution
Milk
Milk Components
Proteins
Genes
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Its In The Genes!

• Composition of milk varies greatly among the
  mammals but the mission remains the same
• Deliver nutrition and health

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The Challenge is to Discover Benefits in
Commercially Available Milk

• Benefits are not demonstrable in all people at
  all times
• Protection, ideally, is invisible without a
  threat
• Prevention, ideally, is invisible forever

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Discovering Benefits of Milk

• Pleotropic factors i.e. multi-functional
  biomolecules
• For example, lactoferrin carries iron
  (nutritional role) and is bacteriostatic
  (protection role)
• Complementary Factors
• Mixtures exhibit benefits that are lost on
  separation, for example, lactoferrin and lysozyme
• Benefits are not solely due to the proteins
• Lipids, carbohydrates and nucleotides
• Digestion of molecules can produce bioactives

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Value of Discovering Milk-based Benefits

• Nutritional Targets
• Designing individualized diets
• Predictable when mechanisms are understood
• Ingredients
• Understand the genetic code for specific benefits
• Commercialization WPI, lactoferrin, GMP, alpha
  lactalbumin, etc.

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Discovering Milk-based Benefits

• Milk is constructed (bio-guided) so as to release
  bioactive components throughout the digestive
  system

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The Molecules of Milk Disassemble onto targets
in the Gut
Gastric Functions
Dental surfaces cGMP Gut Integrity TGFb Mucosal
Functions Phospholipids Bacteria
Protection Lysozyme Lactoferrin Viral
Protection Gangliosides Intestinal Immunity sCD14
Pre-digestion
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Nutrients
2
3
Digestion
Absorption
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Epithelium Barrier Function
Immune Functions
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Bioguided Colonization of the Gut

• Milk creates intestinal environment supporting
  beneficial bacteria

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Milk Genomics Project
To coordinate world wide resources to assemble
and annotate and validate the subset of mammalian
genomes responsible for milk Milk Genomics
Public Genomes
ProteomicsGlycomics Lipomics
ExpressionAnalysis
Knowledge Management Resources
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Milk Genomics Project First International
Conference
November 11-12 2004 Napa,CA

• Set consensus priorities to
• Coordinate the annotation of milk genes
• Validate sequence assignments for the milk
  genomes
• Develop and validate Technologies, Tools and
  Models to discover and demonstrate biological
  activities of milk genes and components

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Milk Genome Project
Web Site
Educational Environment Nutrition Genomics Molecul
ar Evolution Literature Reviews
Data Set Resources Genomes Human, Bovine Mouse,
Goat, Primate Mammary Expression Libraries
Composition
Bioinformatics Commercial Tools Customized Tools
for MGP Consultancy
Links to Collaborators Participants Milk and
Dairy Organizations Regulatory Agencies
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Summary

• Milk contains multiple, many as yet undiscovered,
  molecular functionalities
• These functionalities arose through the selective
  advantage of the greater survival of healthy
  mammals consuming milk
• Novel technologies are making it possible to
  identify and study these functionalities as not
  previously thought possible

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Summary

• To understand these health-providing
  functionalities we also must develop new
  approaches to demonstrate novel benefits of foods
• Milk Genomics represents an opportunity for the
  worlds health researchers to share in the
  functional annotation of the premier model of
  foods for health milk

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Horizons for Milk Products in a Healthy Diet
Joseph ODonnell , Ph.D. California Dairy
Research Foundation Bruce German,
Ph.D. University of California, Davis Functional
Foods The Future of Asian Health January 21,
2005 Hong Kong