Vitamins in Milks

Milk is essential in human nutrition from birth as the very first food, but also later in life after weaning due to milk and dairy product consumption. Bovine milk makes a significant contribution to the reference intake of adults for several micronutrients, mainly vitamins A (11–16%), D (17–50%), B2 (32–46%), B5 (17–21%) and B12 (42–56%). Moreover, all the other vitamins are also present and may have additional properties of interest, for example vitamin E and polyunsaturated fatty acid protection from oxidation in milk fat. This is also true in general for milk of other dairy species. Clinical deficiencies in vitamins are more controlled today and some of them have almost disappeared. However, pregnant women and breast-fed babies as well as elderly people remain at risk. A positive relationship between suboptimal vitamin intakes and the prevalence of chronic diseases in human populations has been observed. Increasing the nutritional quality of milk could help to optimize dietary intakes of vitamins. The factors causing variation in the concentration of vitamin A equivalent in bovine milk are now relatively well documented and it is clear that grass-based diets, especially when provided as fresh forage, improve vitamin A availability to cows through increase in dietary β-carotene intake. Complementary studies are needed to precisely control milk vitamin composition, especially K and B vitamins.