Do infants need probiotics? 🦠 Here is what we know… • Our gut microbiota (the colony of bugs) is most malleable in the first two ✌🏼years of life, allowing probiotics to make their mark.¹ • The types of bacteria living in our infants 👶🏼 gut are initially dependent on what the baby was exposed to during birth 🤰 – aka born vaginally or via C-section. Then it’s determined by what baby eats (breastmilk, formula, solids). 🍼 Over time, the introduction of solid foods & environmental factors lead to the maturation & diversification of the microbes like what we have as adults. • In adults, having a lot of different types of bacteria in our gut is thought to be associated with overall health. BUT the opposite seems to be true in infants. 🤯 100yrs ago babies who were only given breastmilk had basically only one ☝🏻 type of bacteria in their gut -- the Bifidobacterium type. 🦠 The main thing that this bacteria eats is a type of carb found in breastmilk, called Human Milk Oligosaccharides (aka HMO’s). Babies 👶🏼 cannot use this carbohydrate but these beneficial bacteria can! Because of modern lifestyles, medical practices, etc., most babies today have much less of this important bacteria in their bellies. • Scientists 👨🏾🔬 at the University of California Davis (my alma matter, Go Aggies) discovered that Bifidobacterium infantis is an important probiotic that can help build a strong immune system by crowding out the bad bacteria linked to eczema, colic, allergies, diabetes and obesity.² • How can we help our little ones 👶🏼 get more of these beneficial bacteria? We can give it to them as a supplement. 🧑🏻🔬 Research has shown that infants who were supplemented with the probiotic B. infantis EVC001 had mostly Bifidobacterium living in their gut with only 10% potentially bad bacteria. Infants who were not supplemented with this probiotic had up to 40% potentially harmful bacteria living in their guts. • We love the Evivo Health probiotic supplement because it offers the right amount of the right type of probiotic to help promote the growth of the Bifidobacterium in baby’s gut. __ ¹ bit.ly/3b03rS3 ² DOI: 10.1038/s41390-019-0533-2
5 Comments
|