In new research, published this week in Science, researchers analyzed the gut microbiome composition of infants born in hunter gatherer communities and industrial nations and found differences in colonial composition of gut microbiome.
They discovered that after nearly six months since birth, infants from industrial nations start to lose an important bacterial community called Bifidobacterium infantis, which is essential in helping babies digest mother’s milk. Researchers suspect that the loss of such an essential bacteria could be linked to the onset of many immune and allergic diseases.
“If we understand how western infant development differs from other populations, we can even start to think about and possibly decipher microbiome development patterns and how immune or allergic conditions start to emerge,” says Matthew Raymond Olm, study lead author and computational microbiologist working at Justin Sonnenburg’s lab.
Most researchers believe that when a baby is born, its gut microbiome is almost sterile.
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