HMOs and asthma

摘要

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) may provide the 'missing link' explaining the benefits breast feeding confers in asthma prevention, suggest Canadian researchers. The effect, postulate Meghan Azad and colleagues, from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, is delivered through the ability of HMOs to boost the gut microbiome (bacteria) that in turn influences the immune system's perinatal programming of asthma. "Evidence supports the existence of a 'critical period' during which the gut microbiota shapes the infant immune landscape and thus susceptibility to asthma later in life," they write in a review in Frontiers in Pediatrics.