Milk or milk powder is like a double-edged sword. On one hand, milk is one of the most nutritious foods and plays an important role in assisting both children and adults to meet their nutrient requirements; on the other hand, some people would get conjunctivitis, inflammation of nasal, oral cavities and acne after drinking milk, especially milk powder. These symptoms are categorized as Shang huo in Chinese traditional medical system, which literally means ‘suffering from excessively internal heating’.

Ku Ding tea (Lactuca taiwaniana Maxim) is a herbal tea beverage consumed in China and is well known for its medicinal properties, including detoxification, diuretic, ‘heat-clearance’ and promoting disperse wind-heat (body imbalance). Could Ku Ding Tea ease the discomfort of drinking milk?

Recently, a team of researchers, led by TAN Zhiliang, at the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISA) hypothesized that Ku Ding tea alleviates discomfort of Shang huo through its ‘heat clearance’ effect. And the study was designed to test this hypothesis using rats fed various diets that contained milk products to mimic a process of Shang huo, supplemented with Ku Ding tea.

“In our study, eighty rats were randomly assigned to four treatments: basal diet (control), basal diet plus whole milk powder (WM), basal diet plus Ku Ding tea (KD) and basal diet plus whole milk powder and Ku Ding tea (MK).” explained Dr. HAN XueFeng. “Data was collected on animals’ final body weight, hematological values, blood biochemical parameters, antioxidation parameters and immune organ weight index.”

Results showed that final body weight of male KD was significantly lower than that of WM. White blood cell count, monocyte count and granulocyte count of KD rats were significantly lower than those of WM. Compared to the control, single milk powder supplementation numerically increased plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), which is the end product of lipid peroxidation and reflects the oxidative status of the biological system. MDA in the male KD and MK rats were lower than those in WM and control, although the differences were not significant. No significant differences were found in Na+K+-adenosine triphosphatase activity, spleen and thymus index in each group.

“Our findings suggest that Ku Ding tea could inhibit lipid peroxidation, through its antioxidant function. Furthermore, supplementation of Ku Ding tea appeared to reduce milk powder-induced lipid peroxidation. In other words, lipid peroxidation may be one aspect of milk-induced Shang huo mechanisms and Ku Ding tea may have a function to alleviate milk-induced Shang huo symptom through its antioxidation effects.” said Dr. HAN.

The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2006BAD04A15). And the study entitled “Milk powder induced lipid peroxidation reduction using Ku Ding tea (Lactuca taiwaniana Maxim) in rats” has been published in the August issue of JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY-MYSORE, details could be found at http://www.springerlink.com/content/80828l7843346p0h/.