Dietary Sphingomyelin Metabolism and Roles in Gut Health and Cognitive Development

Statement of Significance: Sphingomyelin from food is increasingly recognized as bioactive lipids. This review provides new insights on the dietary sources and metabolism of sphingomyelin, as well as clinical trials on gut health and infant cognitive development. Sphingomyelin (SM) is a widely occurring sphingolipid that is a major plasma membrane constituent. Milk and dairy products are rich SM sources, and human milk has high SM content. Numerous studies have evaluated the roles of SM in maintaining cell membrane structure and cellular signal transduction. There has been a growing interest in exploring the role of dietary SM, especially from human milk, in imparting health benefits. This review focuses on recent publications regarding SM content in several dietary sources and dietary SM metabolism. SM digestion and absorption are slow and incomplete and mainly occur in the middle sections of the small intestine. This review also evaluates the effect of dietary SM on gut health and cognitive development. Studies indicate that SM may promote gut health by reducing intestinal cholesterol absorption in adults. However, there has been a lack of data supporting clinical trials. An association between milk SM and neural development is evident before childhood. Hence, additional studies and well-designed randomized controlled trials that incorporate dietary SM evaluation, SM metabolism, and its long-term functions on infants and children are required.

Automated summary

This review provides new insights on the dietary sources and metabolism of sphingomyelin, as well as clinical trials on gut health and infant cognitive development. Sphingomyelin plays an important role in maintaining cell membrane structure and cellular signal transduction, and dietary sphingomyelin, especially from human milk, has been shown to have health benefits. However, there is a lack of clinical trial data on the effects of sphingomyelin on gut health and cognitive development, and more research and randomized controlled trials are needed.