Antioxidant Properties of Donkey Milk

In the present work the well-known beneficial donkey’s milk (DM) characteristics to human health have been investigated, focusing the attention on anti-oxidant properties. For this purpose, vitamin C, lactoferrin, lactoperoxidase activity and total antioxidant power (PAO) were determined on milk whereas the reactive oxygen metabolites (ROM) and PAO concentrations were evaluated on blood. The trial was carried out on 10 pluriparous jennets. Sterile blood and milk samples were collected during three different periods of lactation. Microbiological tests, SCC (by a fluoro-optoelettronic method), PAO and ROM determinations were performed by commercial kits. Quantitative determination of lactoferrin from DM was determined by an HPLC method, lactoperoxidase activity was evaluated by a continuous spectrophotometric method, vitamin C content determination was performed using a commercial kit. The obtained data were subjected to the analysis of variance (ANOVA, SPSS). Mean values of the investigated param - eters±standard errors were calculated. No significant differences were observed for ROM, SCC and neither blood or milk PAO (respectively, 4.45±0.1 mmol/L; 50.9±19.9¥103/mL; 166.2±4.1 and 55.5±3.2 μmol HClO/mL). The fresh DM contains 57 mg/L of vitamin C, similar to that of human milk but higher compared with that of cow’s milk. The lactoferrin concentration in DM is 0.080±0.0035 g/L, very close to that obtained for mare, bovine but lower if compared with human milk. Mature DM contains low but detectable LPO activity (0.11±0.027 mg/L) similarly to value obtained from human milk. Concluding, for the first time were determined the PAO and ROM reference range in DM, furthermore the high content of vitamin C in DM confirms the important nutritional characteristics of this product.