Low levels of the human breast milk sugar that feeds the beneficial gut microbe Bifidobacterium result in slower colonization of a baby’s intestines by the bacterium, according to a study published last week (April 9) in Microbiome.
Bifidobacterium, one of the first varieties of microbes to grow in a newborn’s digestive tract, are thought to help prevent infection by lowering the pH of the gut, creating a hostile environment for pathogens. The bacterium’s preferred food source is a breast milk sugar that is made in part by the product of the FUT2 gene. Twenty percent of women carry a mutation in the gene that lowers levels of the sugar in their milk.
To investigate the impact of the FUT2 gene mutation on a baby’s microbiome, ...
