Multivariate elaboration of ATR-FTIR data for the assessment of breast milk adulteration

Breast milk is the main food until the first year of the infant's life, and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends breastfeeding for at least the first six months of a child's life. It is well documented that many substances, even toxic, with lipophilic features, to which the mothers are exposed, can penetrate the fat, then the milk and consequently distributed in the baby. For this aim, the present work was focused on 200 breast milk samples collected by the "Galatea" Milk Bank in Cosenza. The milk samples were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy by using the attenuated total reflection (ATR) accessory.[1] FTIR spectra were recorded in the range 4000-450 cm-1 and elaborated by chemometric methodologies (Figure 1). Handling of the unspecific information stored in the data allowed to empathize the different chemical composition of the sample fingerprint. Characterization of different milk samples was possible by considering three different parameters: mother lactation period, end of gestation and mother age. In a second phase, PCA (Principal component analysis) and PLS (Partial least squares) modelling were used to identify possible alteration or adulteration of the breast milk. FTIR data were used to distinguish fresh milk from pasteurized or frozen milk (Figure 2) and assess adulteration by water dilution. References [1] De Luca, M.; Terouzi, W.; Kzaiber, F.; Ioele, G.; Oussama, A.; Ragno, G.;. Classification of moroccan olive cultivars by linear discriminant analysis applied to ATR–FTIR spectra of endocarps. Int. J. Food Sci. Technol. 2012, 47, 1286-1292.