Casein phosphopeptide calcium supplement is effective but not magical

In the national standard of food nutrition enhancer, there is a kind of food enhancer called "casein phosphopeptide" Casein, phosphoric acid and peptide are three things that you may be familiar with when you separate them What kind of things are they connected together? What kind of nutrition is it used to "strengthen"? We have to start with calcium The human body needs to take a certain amount of calcium from the diet every day The content of calcium in different foods is different, and the proportion of calcium absorbed by human body is also different Many people know that the calcium content in dairy products is very high, and it is easy to absorb Some plants also contain a lot of calcium, but it is difficult to absorb This difference comes from the different states of calcium The calcium absorbed by human body needs to be in the state of ion In food and drink, there are often various anions, so calcium is generally in the state of intimate combination with them When it comes to the small intestine, it will not be separated into ions, so it is difficult to be absorbed by the human body For example, calcium in plants, combined with phytic acid in plants, basically can only pass through the intestine There are many proteins in milk, about 80% of which are casein There are several brothers in the casein family, one of which has a relatively concentrated hydrophobic amino acid, the other is mostly hydrophilic amino acid So the hydrophobic one likes to get together, while the hydrophilic one rushes out to deal with the surrounding water Other casein brothers like to hide in it, forming "casein micelles" one by one These casein molecules have some specific amino acid structure, which can attract phosphate anion and calcium ion Under the condition of casein, these phosphate anions and calcium ions do not crystallize to form precipitates, but pile up in casein micelles without organization and discipline Casein micelles are stable and will not disintegrate even if they are heated at high temperature and preserved for a long time Although the concentration of calcium and phosphoric acid anions in the micelles is higher than that in the normal aqueous solution, they are safe When the protein enters the stomach and is cut into small segments by protease, the peptide is still tenacious against further attack of protease, protecting these calcium ions and phosphate anions until the lower part of the small intestine is absorbed In these peptides, there is always a specific structure: three serine phosphate followed by two glutamic acid Scientists use enzymes to cut casein and separate the polypeptide containing this specific structure, namely "casein phosphopeptide", or CPP for short They added CPP to an aqueous solution that mimics the environment of the small intestine Adding different concentrations of calcium, they found that they could indeed keep more calcium dissolved without precipitation Further research shows that it has such effect not only on calcium, but also on iron, zinc and other divalent metal ions It is concluded that this specific result of CPP can be combined with a certain amount of calcium ion to avoid precipitation The human body needs more calcium every day, and many conventional foods contain less calcium Strengthen calcium in diet, there will be a market demand - adding nutrients that are easy to be lacking in food is the only positive way to achieve nutritional balance after a reasonable diet For calcium which has strong binding ability with other food ingredients, we should not only consider the addition, but also consider the absorption efficiency after the addition Especially in beverages, calcium is easily precipitated and precipitated in the general way It is not only difficult to absorb, but also affects the appearance of beverages Whoever sees precipitated beverages will inevitably doubt that they are inferior products CPP is a good carrier for strengthening calcium Of course, the above experiment just shows that it can combine with calcium, and it can not help the absorption of calcium In order to obtain the qualification of "nutritional enhancer", we must have absorption experiments Fortunately, CPP is also very ambitious In the experiment, it shows better absorption capacity than the control group, so it is recognized and selected into the national standard of "nutrition enhancer" More research on CPP is its help in calcification of teeth The main component of teeth is calcium phosphate If phosphate anions and calcium ions are added to CPP, they will be in a state called "amorphous calcium phosphate" because of the existence of specific structure of "three serine phosphate in succession to two glutamic acid" The whole product is also called "casein phosphopeptide amorphous calcium phosphate" complex, referred to as CPP-ACP When such compounds are added to toothpastes or chewing gum and other oral products, the phosphate anion and calcium ion are in a state of indistinct separation, and only when the teeth are fully combined can they be deposited on the teeth Several randomized controlled trials support this idea It should be noted that both CPP and CPP-ACP are only helpful to increase calcium absorption or deposition It is only one of the various solutions to achieve the same effect, effective, but not magical.