London: Nutrient-rich goat milk — much preferred by Mahatma Gandhi — is good for health, including prevention of heart disease.
Goat milk's fat also reduces total cholesterol levels, which makes it a food of choice for preventing cardiac disorders, says a University of Granada study in Spain.
Its regular consumption by anaemic patients improves their recovery, since it enhances the nutritional use of iron and enhances the regeneration of haemoglobin — this means that this type of milk minimises calcium and iron interactions.
Conversely, this type of milk protects DNA stability, even in cases of iron overload caused by prolonged treatments with this mineral to treat anaemia.
Granada researchers, led by Prof Margarita Sanchez Campos, have found that goat milk has many nutrients — as casein — that make it similar to human milk. Goat milk contains less casein alpha 1 — as human milk — which is responsible for most allergies to cow milk.
Infant formula
"For this reason, in some countries it is used as the basis for the development of infant formula in place of cow milk," Granada researchers point out, according to a Granada statement.
Additionally, another beneficial aspect of goat milk is that it contains a significant amount of oligosaccharides. Goat milk has more oligosaccharides with a composition similar to that of human milk.
These compounds reach the large intestine undigested and act as prebiotics, i.e they help develop probiotic flora that competes with pathogenic bacterial flora, making it disappear.
