Tag: probiotics

Per usual, hear from my favorite artist, Khruangbin, while you read! Here’s their website if you want to learn more.

As kids, we don’t get to pick what we drink. Starting from birth, the pacifier stuck in our mouth would give us yummy milk with nutrients and microbiomes that are essential to growth. We didn’t know what milk we had then, but looking back, lets discover how the two major types: breastfed milk or formula, would impact a baby’s microbiome.

Now, you might ask, what is a microbiome? We could start by imagining our human body as a village, and microbiomes are the residents that run the place. For example, there are sanitation workers cleaning the trash, and some are security that protects harm from entering. Scientifically, microbiomes are the collection of all microbes that lives in our body. The initial few years of a human’s life serve as the construction phase for the village, and long term development is set: we are building the basis for long term health.

Breastmilk to the baby is like the building blueprint for the village. One important ingredient in breast milk are HMOs (human milk oligosaccharides), being the third most prevalent solid. However, babies can get no direct calories or nutrients, as they lack the biological system to digest them yet. However, babies are into all types of germs, and this is where HMO comes into affect. Harmful germs have hooks that they use to latch onto the baby’s intestinal walls, and HMOs are covered in the same material as those walls, but they’re floating inside the intestines like loose bits of velcro. When a bacterium tries to hook onto the baby, it would accidentally snag an HMO instead. This resulting floating tangled piece would be swept away by the digestive system, so the bacteria would not get to the baby’s actual tissue. Specifically, HMOs support the growth for Bifidobacterium (B. adolescentis, B. dentium, and B. animalis). It is worth noting that these could be found in breastmilk.

In early stages of life, the gut microbiomes of breastfed and formula-fed infants follow distinct developmental paths. Counterintuitively, formula fed babies have a more diverse microbiome in the earlier stages of life, however it’s a sign that the breast fed has a more specialized, niche microbiome. This is because the breat fed’s guts are dominated by Bifidobacterium, which is populated by the HMOs brought in by breastmilk. In contrast, formula lacks the specific HMOs found in breast milk, so it allows a wider variety of bacteria including those typically found in the adult gut, to be introduced in.

This difference in diversity directly impacts what a child is able to digest. Essentially, during the first six months, the guts of infants who aren’t exclusively breastfed are closer to those of adults, and more complex than those who are. While the non breastfet infants have a wider variety of bacteria, the breast fed have a highly specialized system for the unique composition of human milk. Specifically, the formula fed’s microbial communities act like advanced sugar-processing plants, processing complex carbohydrates such as fructose and mannose; also the biosynthesis of fatty acids and ansamycins. Conversely, breastfed infants prioritizes lipid homeostasis, Vitamin B6 metabolism, and essential free radical detoxification. While the formula fed is built to handle the varied sugars found in formula and solids, the breastfed group optimizes to manage the high fat content of human milk while protecting the developing body from metabolic stress.

Sadly, there are consequences to children who are not breastfed. Significant data shows that infants who are never breastfed face a statistically higher likelihood of developing both obesity and respiratory issues during childhood. Research indicates that formula fed infants have roughly a 15% to 25% higher risk of obesity, due to higher insulin levels in formula and a lack of the specific microbial priming that helps regulate metabolism. Similarly, the absence of breast milk is linked to a 20% to 30% increase in asthma risk, as the immune system misses out on the microbes and antibodies that help calibrate the lungs’ inflammatory response.

While the biological importance is undeniable, there might be many issues in reality- 70% of women face breastfeeding challenges. For example, Maternal health, medication, workplace limitations, and physical challenges mean that breastfeeding isn’t always an option. The goal of understanding this science shouldn’t be to shame parents who can’t breastfeed, but to advocate for better social and scientific support so that those who choose to provide this microbial foundation would be provided equal opportunities.