Maintaining strong Gut Health is crucial for ensuring your overall well-being since the gut microbiota impacts nearly every process in your body– from the immune system and nervous system to mental health.

But, ensuring that Babies develop a robust microbiome is critical since newborns enter the world nearly sterile. Then, the birthing process and exposure to new environments will introduce trillions of microbial cells to their gut, which is key for proper development.

Still, while gut health has been widely studied in full-term infants, the same cannot be said about premature babies.

So, a new study conducted by Newcastle University in England sought to understand the impact of Probiotics on premature babies and actually found that personalized prescriptions are much more influential in the development of gut health.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about fifteen million babies are born preterm every single year.

And ever since the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) recommended that probiotics be facilitated to premature babies two years ago, neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) worldwide have followed suit.

However, after examining the gut health of one hundred and twenty-three babies born before thirty-two weeks’ gestation, the researchers found that a one-size-fits-all approach to the microbiome is not ideal.

The team first used fecal samples from the babies and performed metagenomic sequencing. This allowed them to ascertain what bacteria species were present.

Then, the results were divided into three groups. The first group contained babies born prior to when probiotics were routinely used; the second included infants given the probiotic known as Infloran, and the third consisted of infants given the probiotic known as Labinic.

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And unsurprisingly, the analysis found that probiotic bacteria levels were much higher in the feces of infants who had been administered probiotics. But, the real shock was the difference between the gut epithelial cells of infants who received Infloran versus Labinic.

“Given probiotics are the deliberate administration of viable bacteria, it was somewhat expected that they would be found to impact the preterm infant gut microbiome,” began Dr. Christopher Stewart, leader of Newcastle University’s Translational and Clinical Research Institute.

“What we less expected was the extent of this impact on the preterm infants’ own gut cells, which we found interacted in a unique way when exposed to feces from infants receiving probiotics.”

Now, these findings suggest that NICUs need to take on a personalized approach to medicine in terms of gut health. More specifically, infants should have their gut flora analyzed and be provided with customized probiotics that are optimal for development.

“There probably is not a one size fits all probiotic. Different probiotics contain different strains, in different doses, and, as a result, they are going to have a different impact on gut flora development in infants,” added Lauren Beck, one of the study’s authors.

So, the team is eager to continue researching the impact of probiotics on infants who develop intestinal disease in order to pave the way for more individualized and effective gut health approaches.

To read the study’s complete findings, visit the link here.

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