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The Infant Food Products that you use to feed your baby may contain some Aluminium content. Watch out!

In today’s fast-paced day and age, use of readily available Infant food products as a substitute for breast milk is quite prevalent and perceivable. Millions of working parents today rely on commercially available branded infant formulas to feed children of up to 12 months plus of age. Unfortunately, these infant formulas are still significantly contaminated with Aluminium content.Infant Formulas are sophisticated milk-based feeds for infants designed to meet the specific nutritional needs of children. From decades, these infant formulas were believed to be contaminated by Aluminium and this has raised health consequent issues concerning health of infants exposed to these feeds.

A recent study suggests that Aluminium content continues to exist in Infant Formulas even today! Around 15 major Infant Food Product brands were chosen and tested in samples including ready-made liquid formulas based on cow's milk, powders used to make milk and soya-based products. The Aluminium content in these products was measured and their contamination level was determined. Findings revealed that the concentration of Aluminium in ready-made milks fell in the range of hundreds of micrograms per Litre with the highest amount of concentration found in milk for premature infants. The Aluminium content in powders used to make milk was found to be a few micrograms per Litre with the highest being in soya-based formulas. The average daily ingestion of Aluminium from infant formulas for a child of 6 months varied from ca 200 to 600 µg of Aluminium. Milk formulas prepared from powders contained significantly more Aluminium than their equivalent ready-made product.

Cow's milk forms the main ingredient of most instant formulas. There are others made from soya, basically for infants with intolerances or allergies to cow's milk. Although there was no indication during the study that showed Aluminum being used directly in the preparation of the Infant Formulas, the likelihood is that many of the individual constituents of the formulas are contaminated with Aluminium. The study uncovers the myriad sources of such contamination including equipment used in both processing and storing of bulk products, Aluminium-based materials used for packaging many of the formulas for sale.

The Aluminium content of infant formulas measured during the study is not significantly different to historical values and this lack of improvement in lowering their content suggests either that the manufacturers are not monitoring the Aluminium content of their products or that the manufacturers are not concerned at these levels of contamination. While it is the case that the present levels of Aluminium in infant formulas have not been shown to cause adverse effects in healthy infants it is also the case that there have not been any clinical studies which refute such as a possibility.

Reference:
‘There is (still) too much Aluminium in infant formulas’ – A Study by Shelle-Ann M Burrell and Christopher Exley conducted at Keele University, UK
For more information, please visit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939626/?tool=pmcentrez

Disclaimer: This article is written by a non-medical professional.