Breast milk is widely considered the best source of nutrition for babies — and one reason for that might be that it influences microbes, or bacteria, in a baby’s gut. These microbes are important for breaking down what we eat into key nutrients that help babies grow and develop.
Carbohydrates in breast milk can be modified by the FUT2 enzyme, which could influence a baby’s gut bacteria. Investigators at ACNC examined if breast milk from moms who make the FUT2 enzyme affected gut bacteria and bone growth in their offspring. Using a pre-clinical mouse model, researchers gave the mice fecal samples from babies fed human milk from moms with the FUT2 enzyme, moms without it, or infant formula. After 35 days, researchers studied the mice’s gut bacteria and bone development.
The bacteria group Phocaeicola increased in mice given milk from moms with FUT2, while Akkermansia increased in mice given milk from moms without FUT2. Mice that received formula had more bacteria from the Ruminococcaceae family.
The results also showed that formula mice had less bone volume and structure compared to control mice, while bone volume and structure were unchanged in both FUT2 type (breast milk) mice. Breast milk mice also had higher levels of certain inflammatory proteins that can affect bone formation, compared to formula and control mice.
Overall, data suggest that human milk feeding instead of formula may contribute to bone protective effects by changing the makeup of bacteria types that live in the gut.
Read the full manuscript here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40579603/
