New Delhi: Feeding a baby born by caesarean-section milk containing a tiny bit of the mother’s faeces may provide beneficial microbes to their gut, a new clinical trial has found. The trial was conducted in Finland and reported in the journal Nature this week. The trial, scientists from Finland have noted, suggests that the approach might one day help to prevent diseases during childhood and later in life in kids born through C-section, while also aiding the mounting evidence establishing a connection between gut health and immunity.
Over the last few years, a number of researchers from top universities have generated molecular proofs of the centuries-old concept of “you are what you eat”, demonstrating how diet ultimately affects immunity through the gut microbiome. In 2021, for instance, a research paper by top scientists from the US, Australia and South Korea offered a unifying explanation for the complex interplay between diet, gut microbiota and immune function. The experiments carried out as part of their research identified a microbial molecule, the synthesis and release of which are influenced by host diet.
The molecule, in turn, stimulates the activation and signalling of a subset of cells known as natural killer-T cells—which are involved in immune regulation and implicated in a number of inflammatory conditions. Since then, a number of studies have come out and thrown up crucial evidence demonstrating light the complex interplay between diet, gut microbiota.
