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Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

newyorker.com

31–40 of 53 posts

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#31

> Every mammal mother produces complex sugars called oligosaccharides, but human moth­ers, for some reason, churn out an exceptional variety: so far, scientists have identified more than two hundred human milk oligosaccharides, or H.M.O.s. The second part is very suspicious or at least misleading. I guess that chimpanzees and bonobos have a similar milk composition.

> A study recently published in the Journal of Proteome Research details how human milk has a stunning 1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth - a cocktail of many key nutrients that other mammals' milk does not boast. By comparison, the mother's milk of rhesus macaque monkeys - one of humanity's closest primitive relatives - boasts only 518 key proteins. ( http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1…

1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth

I read that as "if the baby doesn't get all 1,606 of this proteins, it won't develop normally."

That sounds like a ridiculous statement.

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#32
post #7

I don't understand why HN is so obsessed with gut bacteria. I don't oppose posting it, I just don't understand the fascination.

Well, it's literally seen as a medical revolution. "There is increasing evidence that the microbiome and its output (our interactome) touch many, if not most, pathways that affect health, disease, and aging. It is reasonable to propose that the composition of the microbiome and its activities are involved in most, if not all, of the biological processes that constitute human health and disease, as we proceed through…

Don't get too ahead of yourself. Sure we have a lot of evidence that your microbiome is important in things like C. difficile infection, but I've only seen very tenuous evidence supporting any impact on things like aging.

Not to say it might be discovered in the future. But it also stands a good chance of being a dead end.

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#33
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect, from my own anecdata, it's because a great many of us in the field have had gut issues. A lot of us lead lifestyles that aren't necessarily the greatest (although I feel overall that old adage is changing for the better rapidly) and have a deep interest in fixing the problem. Plus, knowing how things work, biological, electrical, whatever.. it all fits the hacker ethos

Finding shortcuts is literally hacking. Let's shortcut our way to good health by reading Wikipedia instead of seeing a doctor. Okay then

No one should entrust their health solely to a doctor. It is like entrusting our life to technical support, which half the time is terrible.

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cow's milk from the store expires in the manner it does due to the processing. Raw milk eventually turns into yogurt, but is still consumable (and delicious, imo). I'd say they froze the milk in question though, just thought I'd mention it.

The reason pasteurized milk spoils instead of turning into yogurt is the same reason why making yogurt from unprocessed milk is a really bad idea. Milk turns into yogurt instead of curd because of a symbiotic relationship between two bacteria which are added to milk after it has been processed. These bacteria are usually already present in raw milk but we wipe them out so that all of the really nasty stuff doesn't su…

I've seen very conflicting information when it comes to how dangerous unprocessed milk actually is. Many people argue that the ultra-bad bacteria is a result of the processing itself (homogenization of milk from hundreds of cows in a single vat, unsanitary conditions for animals, udder sores producing infectious discharge).

I'm not saying you're wrong, but my wife and I get our milk from a single cow. It's tested for harmful bacteria bi-monthly and we wash our own containers beforehand. Do we run a greater risk than purchasing pasteurized milk from the supermarket? Probably, but the flavor and nutrition make it worth it for us.

Additionally, the raw yogurt eventually does turn to curd if put in an environment > ~50 degrees F. If you strain it through a cheesecloth, you have a very soft cream cheese. We don't make a habit out of doing that though -- leaving milk out overnight seems like a bad idea regardless of the source.

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#35

So ... does this mean we are going to see yogurt with "B. Infantis"? Or is this a infant-only symbiotic strain? Curious.

Probably not yogurt, but I have run across several probiotics with this particular bacteria present in it. Additionally I have read that yogurt for the most part is pretty useless as a probiotic as your stomach acid kills most of the bacteria in it (also, many yogurts have little live culture in it).

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A study recently published in the Journal of Proteome Research details how human milk has a stunning 1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth - a cocktail of many key nutrients that other mammals' milk does not boast. By comparison, the mother's milk of rhesus macaque monkeys - one of humanity's closest primitive relatives - boasts only 518 key proteins. ( http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1…

1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth I read that as "if the baby doesn't get all 1,606 of this proteins, it won't develop normally." That sounds like a ridiculous statement.

It might be, but that's orthogonal to the point I was making, which was "yep actually human breastmilk is significantly different to chimpanzees".

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#38
Well, it's literally seen as a medical revolution. "There is increasing evidence that the microbiome and its output (our interactome) touch many, if not most, pathways that affect health, disease, and aging. It is reasonable to propose that the composition of the microbiome and its activities are involved in most, if not all, of the biological processes that constitute human health and disease, as we proceed through our own life cycle" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191014/

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason pasteurized milk spoils instead of turning into yogurt is the same reason why making yogurt from unprocessed milk is a really bad idea. Milk turns into yogurt instead of curd because of a symbiotic relationship between two bacteria which are added to milk after it has been processed. These bacteria are usually already present in raw milk but we wipe them out so that all of the really nasty stuff doesn't su…

I've seen very conflicting information when it comes to how dangerous unprocessed milk actually is. Many people argue that the ultra-bad bacteria is a result of the processing itself (homogenization of milk from hundreds of cows in a single vat, unsanitary conditions for animals, udder sores producing infectious discharge). I'm not saying you're wrong, but my wife and I get our milk from a single cow. It's tested for…

Well, apparently "many people" don't have a basic understanding of biology. The pasteurization process kills all but the thermophilic bacteria which is why you need to culture pasteurized milk. Only one of the two bacteria needed to make yogurt can withstand the process and the rest of the survivors are incapable of out competing our immune system because they are adapted to an entirely different environment. It doesn't matter how many cows produced a batch of milk as long as the temperature is high enough to kill the non-thermophilic microbes. When it comes to food poisoning and regulated dairy products, the vast majority of contaminations are from the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, which is so common it can be found on the skin of almost any human being and is easily transfered after pasteurization. A staph infection is peanuts compared to the "ultra-bad" bacteria like Clostridium botulinum which produces a toxin that is fatal at a concentration on the order of nanograms of toxin per kilogram of body mass (and it certainly can't survive the high temperatures of pasteurization).

Raw milk isn't actually banned in most of the developed world. The EU, for example, has non-binding rules that allow vendors to sell raw milk as long as it is done at a small scale, like your case, where the animals are tested often and the scale of the operation doesn't endanger the health of the average consumer. In most EU countries you can "time share" or own a cow that provides raw milk for your household but you can't openly sell it at a supermarket. Countries like France, where raw milk is culturally preferred (something like 20% of cheeses in France are made from raw milk), have a much much higher incidence of food poisoning from dairy than any of the countries where milk is always pasteurized.

I love raw milk and miss it dearly since I moved to the United States but there is nearly a century of evidence that raw milk at commercial scale is an unacceptable risk to public health. So much so that there isn't a single country in the developed world that doesn't strictly regulate raw milk products and all of them do so for public safety reasons.

Re: Breast-Feeding the Microbiome

#40
post #2

> “We got eighty litres, collected over two years, from someone random at Stanford University, who said, ‘I have all this milk. Do you guys want it?’ ” Wow... that's quite an amount. So human milk doesn't "expire"? Why does cow milk expire then, and what exactly is expiry in the context of milk?

That's it? We had a chest freezer full of the stuff within two months of my daughter's arrival.

Was that on purpose? Milk production waxes and wanes on demand.

I imagine pumping without consideration for that causes over-production (and the desire to pump more to relieve the 'pressure').

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