Breast milk ingredient may help power a healthy infant gut

Despite nourishing babies for millennia, the alchemy of human breast milk remains mysterious. One unknown is how ingredients in the milk, which vary based on a mother’s diet and environment, can affect a baby’s health. Now, after scrutinizing the makeup of milk made by humans and mice, researchers report that one ingredient—a type of amino acid in whole-grain foods called betaine—appears to improve long-term metabolic health by fostering growth of beneficial bacteria in the newborn gut.

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