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Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Milk Collection in the Rat Using Capillary Tubes and Estimation of Milk Fat Content by Creamatocrit
Published on: December 16, 2015
Is fatty acid composition of breast milk different in various populations? A systematic review and meta-analysis
Maryam Bahreynian1,2, Awat Feizi3, Roya Kelishadi4
1Department of Nutrition, Child Growth and Development Research Center, Research Institute for Primordial Prevention of Non-communicable Disease, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Abstract:
This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to systematically review the fatty acid (FA) composition of breast milk in different populations. We systematically searched the Medline via PubMed, Scopus and Clarivate till July 2019. We initially retrieved 433 articles. Having removed duplicates, with initial searching of title and abstracts, 317 papers were excluded and 80 remained. A meta-analysis of 80 cross-sectional, cohort studies, including 8793 subjects, was conducted. Meta-regression analysis indicated that factors including maternal age (p-values of SFA: 0.03, omega-3: 0.01, trans fats:<0.001, total fatty acids: 0.02), year of conducting study (p-values of SFA: <0.001, MUFA: 0.02, omega-6: 0.04,trans fats: 0.04) and sample size (p-values of SFA: 0.03, PUFA: 0.01, omega-6: 0.01, omega-3:<0.001) contributed to the heterogeneity of meta-analysis. This study indicates the large variation of FA content in maternal milk across different populations. Special concern is necessary for both the quality and total amount of fat intake of pregnant and lactating mothers.
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