
Breast-Feeding the Microbiome - anthotny
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/breast-feeding-the-microbiome
======
bllguo
> “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?

~~~
matthewmcg
It is frozen. This can be done for cow milk as well. It changes the taste of
cow's milk and (probably) changes the taste of breast milk.

It's not commonly done for cow's milk because (1) fresh milk is usually
readily available and (2) adults will complain about the taste.

With breast milk, the supply is more limited and an infant won't tell you the
taste is off (but they might refuse to drink it!).

~~~
rafaelm
From my short (3 month experience) , refrigerated milk will take on a "soapy"
smell and flavor. From what I've read, this is due to the enzyme lipase and
can be removed by heating the milk. My baby will sometimes refuse to drink it
at first but then I guess hunger takes over and she downs the whole thing.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
My kids as babies has all sorts of reason to refuse my wife's milk for all
sorts of reasons, not that we could ever be certain what it was but it seemed
somedays they didn't like what she ate that day, if it was pumped and stored
and reheated the temperature wasn't precisely right, etc.

But yeah, in the end when that's all that's on the menu... hunger takes over
:-)

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

~~~
druiid
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).

~~~
giarc
Yoghurt as a probiotic is bad simply because it doesn't contain the right mix
of gut bacteria. Typically it's a lactobacillus strain, which is present in
our gut, but it's only 1 of millions of strains.

~~~
athenot
It's not bad, it's insufficient.

But in the stomach, it is my understanding that the bacteria in yogurt can
help process the sugars in milk, thus avoiding an excess of sugars in the gut,
which might upset the balance of the intestinal flora.

[http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/05/garden/personal-health-
enz...](http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/05/garden/personal-health-enzyme-
deficiency-is-the-reason-many-can-t-digest-milk.html?pagewanted=all)

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gus_massa
> _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.

~~~
jacalata
> 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/13528/20150319/human...](http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/13528/20150319/humans-
need-stronger-breast-milk-thank-mammals.htm))

~~~
refurb
_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.

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

~~~
mkale
Maybe. A chimpanzee is much closer to a human than a monkey, which already had
~500 of the ~1600 proteins.

~~~
gus_massa
I found a handy graph of the primate family:
[http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v15/n5/fig_tab/nrg3707_F1....](http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v15/n5/fig_tab/nrg3707_F1.html)

> _The time of separation of the human lineage from the rhesus macaque lineage
> is dated at 28–25 million years ago, whereas the human and chimpanzee
> lineages are believed to have diverged ~9–5 million years ago._

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serge2k
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.

~~~
bbarn
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

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

~~~
Klinky
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.

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Cletusstok
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/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191014/)

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yawz
Regarding the Microbiome, I'm currently reading Rodney Dietert's "The Human
Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy
Life". I haven't finished it yet, but it's been a great read so far.

[[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906)]

~~~
ralfd
Why did you post this a second time under another account?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12163740](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12163740)

~~~
wodenokoto
Nice catch!

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Cletusstok
Regarding the Microbiome, I'm currently reading Rodney Dietert's "The Human
Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy
Life". I haven't finished it yet, but it's been a great read so far.
[[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906)]

