Avaliação do consumo de leite em aspectos de saúde do consumidor e em modelo animal C. elegans

Abstract

The cow milk and its derivatives have been the target of criticism, precisely because their consumption is associated with biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress and development of diseases. Caenorhabitis elegans has been used as an alternative to other experimental models such as mice and cell culture. This nematode is an excellent research model organism which has signaling pathways that are highly conserved for studying oxidative stress. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of exposure to milk on the levels of reactive oxygen species and stress resistance of Caenorhabditis elegans. Four samples of properly pasteurized bovine milk were used. Standard treatment for all trials was liquid medium (S basal/M9) with 20% milk. The treatment effect was tested on wild-type C. elegans at L4 stage, through body size, pharyngeal beats, progeny quantification, oxidative stress resistance and reactive oxygen species (ROS) quantification. Milk at 20% affected development, but there was no interference in the number of pharyngeal beats of the animals, nor did it cause changes in their reproductive capacity. Under the conditions of this study, exposure to 20% milk does not seem to decrease resistance under stress conditions and does not interfere with the levels of endogenous ROS in wild-type C. elegans. This study contributes to the characterization of the effects of milk exposure on the nematode C. elegans. The second chapter is a questionnaire to analyze the consumption of milk by the population, as well as covering the role of the consumer in marketing and increasing the availability of products from A2 milk (milk that contains only the A2 allele for beta-casein), which is extremely important to dictate the demand and national distribution of the product. In this study, the objective was to evaluate the population's knowledge about A2 milk and to carry out a survey on the consumption of milk related to consumer health aspects. On-line questionnaires through the “Google Forms” platform, with an exploratory and descriptive character, were applied to obtain answers related to knowledge and consumption of A2 milk. The lack of knowledge and lack of A2 milk on the market means that many candidates for consumption of this milk do not have proper access. The low availability of A2 milk in several regions of Brazil becomes a conditioning factor in the knowledge and acquisition of this product.