Spanish researchers apply a special treatment to the protein that causes more digestive problems for allergy sufferers. Researchers have found that proteins treated with light pulses are better digested, opening the door to possible non-allergenic milk.
Cow's milk is one of the foods that causes the most allergies after eggs and fish. It affects approximately 2% of the population. Of course, milk allergies are not always well identified when they are allergies; and is that many of us confuse allergy, caused by milk proteins, with intolerance to the sugar it contains, lactose.
Researchers from the University of Granada and Azti-Tecnalia are developing a procedure that could make milk and other foods stop producing allergies, without altering their nutritional properties. They publish their results on Soft Matter.
9% of milk allergies are caused by β-lactoglobulin.
Researchers have focused on a protein called β-lactoglobulin , which acts as an emulsifier in milk and other foods, keeping fats dispersed in water; Without β-lactoglobulin, milk would very easily separate into an aqueous substance, whey, and fat, as if we tried to mix oil and water. This protein has a very compact structure, which makes it difficult to digest. This difficulty makes β-lactoglobulin a potential cause of allergies, making the partially digested product an allergen; in fact, about 9% of milk allergies are caused by difficulty digesting β-lactoglobulin.
The milk pretreatments could alter the structure of the β-lactoglobulin so that it is more digestible, but this would lead to the protein losing its functionality and the treated milk, therefore, would be separated into fat and water.
Scientists use pulses of light to change the properties of the protein.
However, the researchers propose using something already known in food processing to do something subtler than alter the entire structure of the protein. The light pulses are already used in industry to kill microbes that cause putrefaction of food; These same pulses, if intense enough, can cause small changes in the structure of the protein, exposing certain areas to the action of digestive enzymes, thus facilitating digestion without significantly altering the emulsifying properties of β-lactoglobulin.
Researchers at the University of Granada built a team that replicates the digestion process, with which they were able to study what happens to protein as it passes through the mouth, stomach and intestines. They found that, in the case of proteins treated with light pulses, they were indeed better digested. To verify that the treatment of the proteins did not affect their ability as emulsifiers, they used a simple oil-water interface and they were able to verify that some interfacial properties even improved.
Certainly very interesting results. Now it remains to demonstrate that the treated proteins are actually less allergenic and to verify the effect of the treatment on other allergenic proteins, such as caseins. There is therefore a time for us to see milk and other foods treated with pulses of light on the supermarket shelves. But it will be interesting when they arrive for the relief it will bring to allergies ... and to see the publicity.
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