Abstract
Breastfeeding is natural and the optimal basis of infant nutrition and development, with many benefits for maternal health. Human milk is a dynamic fluid fulfilling an infant’s specific nutritional requirements and guiding the growth, developmental, and physiological processes of the infant. Human milk is considered unique in composition, and it is influenced by several factors, such as maternal diet and health, body composition, and geographic region. Human milk stands 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 oligosaccharides, bacteria, and bacterial metabolites. The objective of this narrative review is to discuss the most recent developments in infant formula with a special focus on human milk oligosaccharides and postbiotics.
Highlights
Nutrition in early infancy and childhood can significantly impact growth and development as well as immediate and later health [1]
Current research still focuses on infant formula aiming to more closely resemble the composition and functionality of human milk, with some already comprising probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, and postbiotics
Human milk naturally provides these components by delivering human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) (‘natural prebiotics’) and beneficial bacteria (‘natural probiotics’) and their metabolites (‘natural postbiotics’)
Summary
Nutrition in early infancy and childhood can significantly impact growth and development as well as immediate and later health [1]. Most HMOs escape digestion in the small intestine [16] and progress to the colon acting as decoy molecules binding pathogens and getting metabolised as ‘food’ for the commensal gut bacteria [27], such as bifidobacteria and lactic acid bacteria, allowing such bacterial populations to become more abundant [28] Besides their prebiotic effect, HMOs have direct effects on immune cells [29,30,31,32], block the routes of infections [30,33], provide building blocks for the brain [34], and stimulate intestine barrier functions, as published elsewhere [35].
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