Breast Milk and Prebiotics

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This is a remarkable story and an instance where fact is stranger than fiction. First, some facts. If you have spent any time on this site, you will know that it is basically about prebiotics. In short, a prebiotic is a special type of plant fiber that is not digested by the small intestine. Rather, it is used as a fuel source by the myriad number of bacteria in the colon. When these good bacteria multiply under the influence of these prebiotic fibers, some dramatic health benefits occur (see prebiotics for details).

The second major element to understand is the fact that the human colon, indeed the colon in every animal, is home to an enormous mix of bacteria. This is natural and very healthy, especially if the good bacteria within the colon are fed right.

Now to the newborn infant. When an infant is born, the entire gut, including the colon, is sterile. However, even as the baby's head begins to slide through the vagina, bacteria are picked up on the infant's lip. When it suckles on the mother's nipple, more bacteria are swallowed. This is a normal and desirable sequence of events.

Here is another interesting set of facts. Those infants who are breast fed, and whose mothers ate lots of foods with prebiotics in them or took a prebiotic supplement, had much fewer and less intense allergies as they grew. Hmmm. That's unexpected, is it not?

The answers are now becoming clear. When these beneficial colon bacteria prodigiously thrive, they exert beneficial influences on the robust and rapidly developing immune system of the infant's colon and, indeed, its entire body.

Now, here is the startling finding that researchers have just discovered. Mother's milk contains large quantities of these prebiotics. In the past, we were taught that only plants, fruits and vegetables had these prebiotic fibers in them. Now we find that mother's milk does too. It is the only animal tissue or fluid where this has been discovered.

But could we not have predicted that this would be the case? If the newborn infant was to have the best bacteria growing in the colon, wouldn't it make sense to have the prebiotic fibers in the mother's milk? Of course it would. And, indeed, this has been found to be the case.

So, mother's milk is by far the most potent source of nutrition, minerals and vitamins for the infant. It is also the very best source of prebiotics for the brand new bacteria factory in the baby's colon. Infant formula manufacturers have been forever trying to replicate mother's milk. Nothing comes close to what mother's natural milk can do for the infant in creating a healthy environment within the baby's colon.

So, plant fibers and mother's milk are the only two sources of prebiotic health fibers.

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