article · AIMS Agriculture and Food
Camels thrive as dairy animals in arid and desert environments, outperforming other livestock such as cattle by yielding more milk over longer periods. Camel milk possesses distinct structural and functional characteristics compared to bovine milk, featuring unique protein compositions and colloidal structures. It provides notable nutritional value and contains bioactive compounds and peptides generated during digestion or fermentation. These components are associated with various potential therapeutic properties, including antidiabetic, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and hypoallergenic effects. However, evidence for these health benefits relies primarily on laboratory and animal studies, leaving clinical effectiveness unconfirmed in humans. Furthermore, the structural divergences from cow milk create significant technical challenges for processing camel milk into standard dairy products.
Camel milk provides a resilient source of dairy in arid environments where other livestock struggle. Clarifying its nutritional composition and potential medicinal benefits helps consumers and researchers understand its therapeutic value realistically, whilst highlighting the distinct technical approaches required to handle and process it into viable consumer goods.
The findings point towards functional foods and dairy products tailored for arid regions or niche nutrition markets. However, commercialisation appears at an early research stage: dairy processors face technical hurdles because camel milk behaves differently to bovine milk during processing, and companies cannot yet make validated therapeutic claims without conclusive clinical trial confirmation.
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<abstract> <p>Camels are important dairy animals and are better milk producers in arid and desert environments than other livestock kept in the same environment. They not only survive but also produce more milk for longer periods than other animals, such as cattle. Camel milk has unique properties and a number of advantages as compared to milk from other species. This paper reviews recent developments on camel (<italic>Camelus dromedarius</italic>) milk, its nutritional and health benefits. It also addresses the peculiar characteristics of camel milk and its implications on processing and development of camel dairy products. Camel milk has superior nutritional quality and purported medicinal properties against a range of human illnesses including antidiabetic, anti-autistic, anti-microbial, antihypertensive, anticarcinogenic, anticholesterolemic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hypoallergenic, hepatoprotective and immune boosting effects. The claimed therapeutic property of camel milk is attributed to its possession of various bioactive compounds as well as generation of bioactive peptides from intact proteins during digestion and/or fermentation of the milk. Although available reports mainly based on <italic>in vitro</italic> studies and animal models indicate the therapeutic potential of camel milk, the clinical effectiveness and value of camel milk as a therapeutic agent has not been conclusively confirmed. Camel milk differs markedly from bovine milk in terms of structural and functional properties of the milk components, and composition of individual proteins and its colloidal structures. These differences present challenges for processing camel milk into products.</p> </abstract>
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DOI: 10.3934/agrfood.2022048
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