Mothers' milk and the infant gut microbiota: An ancient symbiosis
Saturday, April 16, 2016 - 03:10
in Health & Medicine
Nursing infants' gastrointestinal tracts are enriched with specific protective microbes. Mother's milk, itself, guides the development of neonates' gut microbiota, nourishing a very specific bacterial population that, in turn, provides nourishment and protects the child. Now a team from the University of California, Davis, has identified the compound in the milk that supplies this nourishment, and has shown that it can be obtained from cow's milk. This work could result in using cow's milk to provide that compound as a prebiotic for infants. The research is published ahead of print on April 15th in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.