Insulin Important for Breast Milk Production

Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Ohio (USA), found out that insulin plays a very important role in breast milk production.

As reported by The Indian Express, a recent research by American scientists showed that lack of insulin is one of the factors behind the insufficient amount of breast milk in nursing mothers. Americans for the first time managed to describe how the mammary gland gets particularly sensitive to insulin during lactation.

It is well known that the cells producing milk, need insulin. Lactation cells need it as a sugar conductor. It appears that insulin plays a much bigger role for the “milk” cells than it was previously assumed. Tests have shown that when breasts begin to produce milk rich in fat and carbohydrates necessary for the child, there is sharp intensification of insulin receptors.

Experts isolated RNA from the milk produced by the mammary gland. It turned out that in the process of milk production (starting with colostrum), certain well-defined changes in the activation and suppression of the set genes take place. As a result of the study, the scientists created the first open-access library of mammary gland genes.