Vitamin E concentration in breast milk in different periods of lactation: Meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: This study systematized information about vitamin E concentration in healthy breast milk during different stages of lactation in order to support the strategies of protecting postpartum women and infants.

Methods: Studies published before April 30th, 2021, which detected vitamin E concentration in breast milk of healthy women by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) or Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (UHPLC), were evaluated. The databases of CNKI (Chinese), WanFang Data (Chinese), VIP (Chinese), PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Embase were searched. The random effect models were used to conduct meta-analysis by the statistical software package Stata 14.0.

Results: In all 4,791 searched publications, 53 with full text were selected, which included 46 descriptive studies, 1 case-control study, 1 non-randomized controlled trial, and 5 randomized controlled trials. The pooled mean of vitamin E concentration was 10.57 mg α-TE/L (95%CI 8.94-12.20) in colostrum, 4.03 mg α-TE/L (95%CI 3.29-4.77) in transitional milk and 3.29 mg α-TE/L (95%CI 2.95-3.64) in mature milk. Subgroup analysis showed that vitamin E concentration of colostrum in Asian countries was lower than that in Western countries in colostrum and transitional milk.

Conclusions: Vitamin E concentration in breast milk decreased during lactation until the mature milk was produced. The vitamin E concentration of colostrum in Asian countries was evidently lower than that in Western countries. The vitamin E concentration in mature milk is similar in different regions. The concentration of vitamin E in breast milk started to be stable from about 2 to 3 weeks postpartum until 4 or 6 months postpartum, but it needs additional evidence to support.

Keywords: alpha-tocopherol; breast milk; lactation; meta-analysis; vitamin E.