Vesicle properties and health benefits of milk phospholipids: a review

Abstract

Phospholipids are important ingredients in milk. They serve as bioactive components with processing functionalities, despite representing only a small proportion of total milk lipids. There has been increasing interest in vesicle properties and health effects of milk phospholipids. However, there are limited reports on industry-scale manufacturing of related commercial products. This contribution aims to elucidate the industrial processes of manufacturing milk phospholipid products including phospholipid extraction and fraction as well as summarizing determination assays of milk phospholipids. In addition to industrial production, this review elaborates on application aspects, such as the biological properties of milk phospholipids and their technical importance as delivery vesicles of liposomes and phytosomes. In addition, new insights on large-scale production of milk phospholipids and new applications such as phytosomes and antioxidant properties are discussed.