Microbiota-directed food prototype beneficial for malnourished children
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Study results support the use of microbiota-directed complementary food prototype as a dietary supplement for young children with moderate acute malnutrition.
“Larger trials will need to be performed in disparate geographic regions to further assess the efficacy of this therapeutic approach for treating childhood undernutrition,” Robert Y. Chen, BS, from the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, and colleagues wrote. “The plasma and microbiota biomarkers that were identified in the present study should help enable better characterization and stratification of participants in future interventions.”
Chen and colleagues provided 123 Bangladeshi children (aged 12-18 months) who had moderate acute malnutrition with a microbiota-directed complementary food prototype (MDCF-2) or a ready-to-use supplementary food; 118 children completed the intervention. Researchers provided the supplementation twice daily for 3 months then monitored the children for 1 month.
“We obtained weight-for-length, weight-for-age, and length-for-age z scores and mid–upper-arm circumference values at baseline and every 2 weeks during the intervention period and at 4 months,” Chen and colleagues wrote.
Investigators compared the rate of change in related phenotypes between baseline and 3 months and between baseline and 4 months. They measured the level of 4,977 proteins in plasma and 209 bacterial taxa in fecal samples.
According to researchers, rate of change in the weight-for-length and weight-for-age z scores were consistent with a benefit of MDCF-2 on growth through the course of the study. This included the 1-month follow-up.
“Receipt of MDCF-2 was linked to the magnitude of change in levels of 70 plasma proteins and of 21 associated bacterial taxa that were positively correlated with the weight-for-length z score (P < .001 for comparisons of both protein and bacterial taxa),” investigators wrote.
Chen and colleagues said the proteins included were mediators of bone growth and neurodevelopment.
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