Take prebiotics, modulate human milk composition?

Supplementing with prebiotics while pregnant and breastfeeding could influence a child’s risk of developing allergies. 

Prebiotics – non-digestible carbohydrates – feed gut bacteria and promote immunity. Researchers at the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Center for Immunology and Breastfeeding (LRF CIBF) have found that prebiotics influence key immunomodulatory factors linked to allergy in breastmilk. Now, they are investigating infant clinical outcomes to understand if this could be good news for breast-fed infants. 

Results from their first-of-its-kind study have just been published in Pediatric and Allergy and Immunology (‘Effect of maternal prebiotic supplementation on human milk immunological composition: Insights from the SYMBA study’). 

Click here to read the details.

“This finding is crucial for understanding how prebiotic dietary recommendations for pregnant and lactating women can modify the immune properties of human milk and potentially influence infant health outcomes through immune support from breastfeeding,” write the study’s authors. 

FLRF is a proud supporter of this work, through the LRF CIBF, The University of Western Australia.