Donating your breastmilk for research is really helpful to some companies who
won't remain nameless..Abbott Labs.    There is an interesting patent #
6146670 called "Nutritional formulations containing oligosaccharides" with
the assignee being Abbott or should I say Ross.  They collected breastmilk
samples from the following sites:

1.  The Center for Pediatric Research, Eastern Virginia Medical School,
Norfolk, Va.
2.  The University of Chile, Division of Medical Science Orient, Santiago,
Chile
3.  Department of Infectious Disease, National Institute of Nutrition, Mexico
4.  Clinical Study No. W93-180, Abbott International Division, North Chicago,
Illinois
5.  Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio
6.  Dr. Milo Hilty, Ross Labs, Columbus, Ohio

There explanation is:

"Human milk is well-known to contain more than 100 different
oligosaccharides, some of which are genetically determined. Unfortunately,
the structural similarities of many of these carbohydrates have made it
difficult to isolate, identify, and quantify many of these oligosaccharides.
Most of the published works on these oligosaccharides have studied these
compounds as classes rather than as individual oligosaccharides.

Previous work has shown that certain oligosaccharides may be beneficial
biologically. For example, oligosaccharides containing N-acetylglucosamine
(GlcNAc) have been demonstrated to stimulate the growth of Lactobacillus
bifidus var pennsylvanicus, which protects infants from gastrointestinal
infections (Coppa, G., et al., Pediatrics 91:3 (1993) 637-641, this reference
as well as all patents and publications cited herein are incorporated by
reference). Other reports indicate that human milk oligosaccharides promote
growth of the beneficial bacteria Bifidobacterium bifidum, which is assumed
to be involved in the healthy development of infants (Thurl, S., et al.,
Journal of Chromatography 568 (1991) 291-300). In one study, human milk
prevented the attachment of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus
influenzae (Andersson, B., et al., J. Infect. Dis. 153 (1986) 232-237). This
study further proved that this decrease in attachment was "due mainly to
components other than the specific antibodies" present in the milk and may be
caused by the "receptor-active oligosaccharide determinants on
glycoproteins". Pneumococcal attachment was inhibited by both high and low
molecular weight fractions, specifically lactose-N-tetraose (LNT,
Gal.beta.1-4GlcNAc.beta.1-4Gal.beta.1-4Glc) and lactose-N-neotetraose (LNnT,
Gal.beta.1-4GlcNAc.beta.1-3Gal.beta.1-4Glc) (Anderson, B., et al., J. Infect.
Dis. 153 (1986) 232-237). In general, oligosaccharides can inhibit the
binding of bacteria to epithelial cells, acting as decoys by competing with
cell receptors. Additionally, oligosaccharides protect infants from viral and
bacterial infections of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and urogenital
tracts.

Genetics play a large part in the presence or absence of certain
oligosaccharides in milk from different donors, an attribute which is linked
to the Lewis blood group status of the individual. The "Secretor" and "Lewis"
genes encode specific glycosyltransferases. These enzymes in turn produce a
variety of secondary gene products, specifically, oligosaccharides and other
glycoconjugates. The presence or absence of glycosyltransferases in the
lactating mammary gland has a direct impact on the existence and quantity of
certain carbohydrate structures found in human milk from a given donor.

Many beneficial functions have been attributed to human milk
oligosaccharides. For this reason, the supplementation of infant formulas and
other pediatric nutritional products with human milk oligosaccharides is
desirable. An infant formulation supplemented with oligosaccharides near the
naturally occurring levels of such oligosaccharides in human breast milk
would be most beneficial. The natural levels of specific human milk
oligosaccharides have been obtained from pooled milk samples (Kobata, A.,
Methods in Enzymology 28 (1972) 262-271; Kunz, C., et al., Acta Paediatr. 82
(1993) 903-912) or by using methods that required heating the samples, thus
destroying labile oligosaccharides (Thurl, S. et al., Analytical Biochemistry
235 (1996) 202-206). Also, averages have been published for some
oligosaccharide concentrations (See Thurl, S., et al, Ana. Biochem. 235
(1996) 202-206; Thurl, S., et al., J. Chromat. 565 (1991) 291-300), but the
variability of these oligosaccharides has not been established because of the
large amount of human milk samples necessary to achieve statistical
significance. Because of these difficulties, at the present time, an infant
formulation containing oligosaccharides near the naturally occurring levels
found in human breast milk is not available. "
*****************************************************************************
Gee, do you think they will ever pay any of the moms for helping them with
their invention??? Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC  (looking at some 600 patents
with human milk in them--just found out that they will be using lactoferrin
in the meat industry--it will be sprayed on meat to protect it from e.coli as
well as other microbes that lactoferrin is active against....maybe that will
be my next post..ya interested?)

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