Abstract
Human milk serves as a model for infant formula providing nutritional solutions for infants not able to receive enough mother’s milk. Infant formulas aim to mimic the composition and functionality of human milk by providing ingredients reflecting those of the latest human milk insights, such as prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of the supplementation with a postbiotic (LactofidusTM) and its combination with the prebiotics short-chain galactooligosaccharides (scGOS) and long-chain fructooligosaccharides (lcFOS) in a preclinical model of healthy suckling rats. Pups were supplemented daily with LactofidusTM (POST group) and/or scGOS/lcFOS (P+P and PRE groups, respectively). Body weight and fecal consistency were analyzed. At the end of the study, immunoglobulin (Ig) profile, intestinal gene expression, microbiota composition and short chain fatty acid (SCFA) proportion were quantified. The supplementation with all nutritional interventions modulated the Ig profile, but the prebiotic mixture and the postbiotic induced differential effects: whereas scGOS/lcFOS induced softer feces and modulated microbiota composition and SCFA profile, Lactofidus™ upregulated Toll-like receptors gene expression. The use of the combination of scGOS/lcFOS and Lactofidus™ showed the effects observed for the oligosaccharides separately, as well as showing a synergistic impact on animal growth. Thus, the combined use of both products seems to be a good strategy to modulate immune and microbial features in early life.
Highlights
Breast milk is the best nutrition for the newborn, and provides all the essential nutrients and bioactive compounds such as oligosaccharides, immune cells and bacteria and their metabolites in order to promote his/her development [1,2]
Prebiotics are defined as non-digestible compounds that are selectively metabolized by the microorganisms in the gut, modulating the composition and/or activity of the gut microbiota, conferring a health benefit on the host [5,6]
Clinical research has demonstrated that short-chain galactooligosaccharides (scGOS) and long-chain fructooligosaccharides (lcFOS) supplements change the stool consistency and fecal microbiota composition making them more similar to that of breastfed infants [7,8,9]
Summary
Breast milk is the best nutrition for the newborn, and provides all the essential nutrients and bioactive compounds such as oligosaccharides (natural prebiotics), immune cells and bacteria (natural probiotics) and their metabolites (natural postbiotics) in order to promote his/her development [1,2]. Manufacturers infant formulas aim to mimic the composition of breast milk by adding bioactive agents to their formulas such as prebiotics, probiotics and more recently, postbiotics [3,4]. Prebiotics are defined as non-digestible compounds that are selectively metabolized by the microorganisms in the gut, modulating the composition and/or activity of the gut microbiota, conferring a health benefit on the host [5,6]. In this regard, the short-chain galactooligosaccharides (scGOS) and long-chain fructooligosaccharides (lcFOS) mixtures are the most studied prebiotics in infant formula. During early life, the incidence of atopic dermatitis, allergy, and infections such as respiratory tract and gastrointestinal infections in babies fed with this type of infant formula were lower than those receiving formulas lacking these components [10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
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