Unique whey protein is promising supplement for stric...(rotein directly people with PKU drink a ...)

Ney hopes to reduce reliance on this cocktail by offering an alternativefoods and beverages made with glycomacropeptide, the only known dietary protein that is phenylalanine-free. Mark Etzel, a UW-Madison food engineer and fellow co-author on the paper, developed a method to purify this unique protein from cheese whey.

Glycomacropeptide is lousy from the standpoint of protein quality. It doesnt have the right proportion of essential amino acids, says Ney. However, we show that by supplementing it with the right amino acids, the mice grow just fine. This establishes the nutritional adequacy of this diet.

Her team also looked at the brains of mice with PKU, where phenylalanine causes problems. Perhaps the most interesting observation about the mice that were fed glycomacropeptide is that they had a 20 percent decrease in phenylalanine in their brains (compared to those fed the equivalent of the traditional amino-acid diet prescribed to humans). Thats a pretty good drop, and we saw it consistently in five different areas of the brain.

Phenylalanine was also lower in the blood of these mice, by about 11 percent.

Upon learning about these positive results, various grassroots organizations that support the PKU community decided to fund this project, helping the UW-Madison team move more quickly in the direction of real-world applications. Already, Kathy Nelson, a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, has created a line of glycomacropeptide-fortified foods, including pudding, fruit rolls, crackers and an assortment of flavorful drinks. Prototypes are currently being tested in a human clinical study funded by the National Institutes of Health, and the preliminary results look promising, says Ney.

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