Glycerol monolaurate has the ability to resist infection from pathogenic microorganisms. It is widely used in infant milk powder, rice flour and other products, also widely used in baked food to improve the quality of rice noodles. It is a safe and efficient broad-spectrum fungicide that inhibits HIV, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, cold virus and a large number of bacteria and proorganisms. Its antibacterial effect is not affected by pH, which is better than sorbic acid, benzoic acid, p-hydroxybenzoate, etc. It is used in breads, cakes, steamed buns and moon cakes, functional food and health care products. It can be used in meat products, dairy products and fruit and vegetable products preservative, significantly extend the shelf life of food.
In experiments with female monkeys, a team at the University of Minnesota found that glycerol monolaurate (GML) was effective in helping females avoid infection with the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). The findings are expected to lead to new ways of preventing HIV infection in humans. The report was published in the British journal Nature.
The team stresses that the biggest advantage of glycerol monolaurate is that it is cheap and, if proven effective in blocking HIV transmission in humans, it could lead to cheap HIV prevention drugs for women. In addition to AIDS, the compound may have the effect of blocking other sexually transmitted infections.
Different microbicides have previously been tried with disappointing results, while glycerol monolaurate have shown significant effects, nature said.
