Breast milk, bone growth, and childhood malnutrition

Certain breast milk carbohydrates may affect the gut-bone axis in ways that could provide potential therapeutic options for stunting in malnourished children, a study suggests. Undernutrition in children is a major global health problem that partly manifests as reduced growth, or stunting. Nutritional interventions to treat stunting have been largely ineffective, highlighting the need for a greater understanding of growth-promoting mechanisms. Jeffrey Gordon and colleagues measured circulating biomarkers of bone resorption by osteoclasts and bone formation by osteoblasts in 54 stunted children with severe acute malnutrition and found evidence for elevated osteoclastic activity. Based on an earlier finding that some mothers of stunted children have reduced levels of sialylated breast milk oligosaccharides, the authors colonized young mice raised in a germ-free environment with a collection of bacterial strains cultured from the gut microbial community of a severely stunted malnourished six-month-old infant. Gnotobiotic mice exhibited decreased bone resorption when given a diet resembling that of the infant but supplemented with a purified bovine oligosaccharide mixture dominated by sialylated structures found in human breast milk. Supplementation decreased osteoclastogenesis while sparing osteoblast activity. Additional experiments found evidence that gut microbes, intestinal cell populations, and immune mediators were associated with the observed bone response. The findings suggest that interactions between milk oligosaccharides, gut microbiota, and the immune system may uncover potential therapeutic targets for overcoming stunting in undernourished children, according to the authors.

###

Article #18-21770: "Mechanisms by which sialylated milk oligosaccharides impact bone biology in a gnotobiotic mouse model of infant undernutrition," by Carrie Cowardin et al.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Jeffrey Gordon, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; tel: 314-362-7243; e-mail: <jgordon@wustl.edu>