SureStart™ MFGM Lipids

Milk from mammals contains droplets of fat.  The outer layer of these droplets is called the milk fat globule membrane (MFGM).

MFGM contains bioactive components such as complex milk lipids and MFGM proteins. The MFGM is an enriched source of phospholipids and gangliosides that may play an important role in brain development and cognition.

The MFGM proteins make up about 1% of the total protein in milk, and have bioactive properties that may support immune function and digestive health. The profile of the most abundant MFGM proteins is similar in human milk and SureStart™ MFGM Lipid 100 (Ma et al 2019).

A number of studies have shown the potential benefits of MFGM containing ingredients for infant cognitive development.
 

• In a pilot study in Indonesia (Gurnida et al. 2012), healthy term infants fed a ganglioside-enriched infant formula from < 2 months to 6 months of age had higher hand-eye coordination, performance and general IQ scores (measured with the Griffith Scale) at 6 months of age than infants fed a standard infant formula.
  
  
• In a small study in Japan (Tanaka et al. 2013), very low birth weight preterms who received a formula enriched in milk sphingomyelin in addition to breast milk had higher developmental scores at 6, 12 and 18 months of age than infants who received a formula enriched with egg sphingomyelin.

Breast milk is the gold standard for infant nutrition.  It is widely recognized that the composition and structure of the fat in human milk and infant formula differ.  

Infant formulae have been traditionally formulated with vegetable oils to match the fatty acid profile of breast milk, resulting in lower levels of MFGM components.  Advances in dairy processing have made possible the MFGM enrichment of dairy streams, which has given manufacturers the ability to match the human milk fat globule composition, but also structure, in infant formulae.