Determination of ultrafiltrable zinc in human milk by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry.

Percentages of non-protein-bound zinc in human milk have been reported by different workers, but ultrafiltration and zinc determination in human milk have not been comprehensively examined. However, zinc contamination and zinc membrane binding have been described for the determination of non-protein-bound zinc in serum. In this work, ultrafiltration was studied in terms of zinc contamination and zinc membrane binding. An MPS-1 micropartition system fitted with a YMT membrane was used. Zinc contamination was found to be less than 276 nmol dm-3 and the zinc recovery was 85 +/- 4%. The conditions for electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry were also studied. The detection limit was found to be 26.4 nmol dm-3 and the upper linear range was 4 mumol dm-3. The precision varied from 3% (within-run) to 17% (between-run). The recovery of standard additions was 95 +/- 7% (n = 30, different human milk ultrafiltrate samples). Physiological values varied from 0.46 to 84 mumol dm-3 (4-56% of zinc in whole human milk). Expressed in mumol dm-3, zinc in human milk ultrafiltrate decreased slightly through the lactation period, whereas expressed as a percentage of the total zinc in milk, zinc in human milk ultrafiltrate remained constant from day 2 to day 69 post partum.