Human milk nonprotein nitrogen components: changing patterns of free amino acids and urea in the course of early lactation.

Free amino acids and urea were analyzed in 78 human milk samples obtained during the first 5 wk of lactation from 10 mothers delivering at term. Significant differences (p less than 0.05) in the concentrations between colostral and mature milk were found for glutamic acid, glutamine, alanine, glycine, cystine, and phosphoethanolamine which increased, and with serine, phosphoserine, aspartic acid + asparagine, arginine, lysine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, proline, methionine, tryptophan, and beta-alanine which decreased. Some of these changes occurred within the first 5 days of lactation, so that differences between transitional and mature milk became negligible (glutamic acid, alanine, and serine, aspartic acid + asparagine, lysine, isoleucine, methionine, tryptophan, respectively). No significant differences between any of the three stages of lactation were found regarding the concentrations of total free amino acids, urea, taurine, threonine, valine, leucine, histidine, and tyrosine. Possible relevances for free amino acids, including nonprotein ones, in human milk are discussed.