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Breast-Feeding the Microbiome
- Cletusstok 10y agoWell, it's literally seen as a medical revolution. "There is increasing evidence that the microbiome and its output (our interactome) touch many, if not most, pathways that affect health, disease, and aging. It is reasonable to propose that the composition of the microbiome and its activities are involved in most, if not all, of the biological processes that constitute human health and disease, as we proceed through our own life cycle" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191014/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191014/
- bllguo 10y ago> “We got eighty litres, collected over two years, from someone random at Stanford University, who said, ‘I have all this milk. Do you guys want it?’ ” Wow... that's quite an amount. So human milk doesn't "expire"? Why does cow milk expire then, and what exactly is expiry in the context of milk?
- matthewmcg 10y agoIt is frozen. This can be done for cow milk as well. It changes the taste of cow's milk and (probably) changes the taste of breast milk. It's not commonly done for cow's milk because (1) fresh milk is usually readily available and (2) adults will complain about the taste. With breast milk, the supply is more limited and an infant won't tell you the taste is off (but they might refuse to drink it!).
- bllguo 10y agoSeems obvious in retrospect. Wonder if the freezing adversely affects anything? Probably not.
- balls187 10y agoThe freezing process of breastmilk does destroy some of the nutrients, making it less nutritious than an infant feeding directly on breast.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rafaelm 10y agoFrom my short (3 month experience) , refrigerated milk will take on a "soapy" smell and flavor. From what I've read, this is due to the enzyme lipase and can be removed by heating the milk. My baby will sometimes refuse to drink it at first but then I guess hunger takes over and she downs the whole thing.
- cmrdporcupine 10y agoMy kids as babies has all sorts of reason to refuse my wife's milk for all sorts of reasons, not that we could ever be certain what it was but it seemed somedays they didn't like what she ate that day, if it was pumped and stored and reheated the temperature wasn't precisely right, etc. But yeah, in the end when that's all that's on the menu... hunger takes over :-)
- xkcd-sucks 10y agoheating before freezing might kill lipase activity, but heating after thawing won't turn soap back into fat
- eli 10y agoThis only occurs for a minority of women.
- soperj 10y agoThey say to only keep frozen breast milk for up to 3 months though.
- bretthoerner 10y agoI think this has more to do with residential freezers being opened/closed regularly, and doing defrost cycles.
- Fomite 10y ago"They" are talking about milk for human consumption, not milk for research being kept in -40C freezers.
- ccallebs 10y agoCow's milk from the store expires in the manner it does due to the processing. Raw milk eventually turns into yogurt, but is still consumable (and delicious, imo). I'd say they froze the milk in question though, just thought I'd mention it.
- akiselev 10y agoThe reason pasteurized milk spoils instead of turning into yogurt is the same reason why making yogurt from unprocessed milk is a really bad idea. Milk turns into yogurt instead of curd because of a symbiotic relationship between two bacteria which are added to milk after it has been processed. These bacteria are usually already present in raw milk but we wipe them out so that all of the really nasty stuff doesn't survive (aka botulism and a host of other bacteria that produce toxins).
- ccallebs 10y agoI've seen very conflicting information when it comes to how dangerous unprocessed milk actually is. Many people argue that the ultra-bad bacteria is a result of the processing itself (homogenization of milk from hundreds of cows in a single vat, unsanitary conditions for animals, udder sores producing infectious discharge). I'm not saying you're wrong, but my wife and I get our milk from a single cow. It's tested for harmful bacteria bi-monthly and we wash our own containers beforehand. Do we run a greater risk than purchasing pasteurized milk from the supermarket? Probably, but the flavor and nutrition make it worth it for us. Additionally, the raw yogurt eventually does turn to curd if put in an environment > ~50 degrees F. If you strain it through a cheesecloth, you have a very soft cream cheese. We don't make a habit out of doing that though -- leaving milk out overnight seems like a bad idea regardless of the source.
- akiselev 10y agoWell, apparently "many people" don't have a basic understanding of biology. The pasteurization process kills all but the thermophilic bacteria which is why you need to culture pasteurized milk. Only one of the two bacteria needed to make yogurt can withstand the process and the rest of the survivors are incapable of out competing our immune system because they are adapted to an entirely different environment. It doesn't matter how many cows produced a batch of milk as long as the temperature is high enough to kill the non-thermophilic microbes. When it comes to food poisoning and regulated dairy products, the vast majority of contaminations are from the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, which is so common it can be found on the skin of almost any human being and is easily transfered after pasteurization. A staph infection is peanuts compared to the "ultra-bad" bacteria like Clostridium botulinum which produces a toxin that is fatal at a concentration on the order of nanograms of toxin per kilogram of body mass (and it certainly can't survive the high temperatures of pasteurization). Raw milk isn't actually banned in most of the developed world. The EU, for example, has non-binding rules that allow vendors to sell raw milk as long as it is done at a small scale, like your case, where the animals are tested often and the scale of the operation doesn't endanger the health of the average consumer. In most EU countries you can "time share" or own a cow that provides raw milk for your household but you can't openly sell it at a supermarket. Countries like France, where raw milk is culturally preferred (something like 20% of cheeses in France are made from raw milk), have a much much higher incidence of food poisoning from dairy than any of the countries where milk is always pasteurized. I love raw milk and miss it dearly since I moved to the United States but there is nearly a century of evidence that raw milk at commercial scale is an unacceptable risk to public health. So much so that there isn't a single country in the developed world that doesn't strictly regulate raw milk products and all of them do so for public safety reasons.
- kchoudhu 10y agoThat's it? We had a chest freezer full of the stuff within two months of my daughter's arrival.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoWas that on purpose? Milk production waxes and wanes on demand. I imagine pumping without consideration for that causes over-production (and the desire to pump more to relieve the 'pressure').
- gsmethells 10y agoSo ... does this mean we are going to see yogurt with "B. Infantis"? Or is this a infant-only symbiotic strain? Curious.
- druiid 10y agoProbably not yogurt, but I have run across several probiotics with this particular bacteria present in it. Additionally I have read that yogurt for the most part is pretty useless as a probiotic as your stomach acid kills most of the bacteria in it (also, many yogurts have little live culture in it).
- giarc 10y agoYoghurt as a probiotic is bad simply because it doesn't contain the right mix of gut bacteria. Typically it's a lactobacillus strain, which is present in our gut, but it's only 1 of millions of strains.
- athenot 10y agoIt's not bad, it's insufficient. But in the stomach, it is my understanding that the bacteria in yogurt can help process the sugars in milk, thus avoiding an excess of sugars in the gut, which might upset the balance of the intestinal flora. http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/05/garden/personal-health-enzyme-deficiency-is-the-reason-many-can-t-digest-milk.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/05/garden/personal-health-enz...
- serge2k 10y agoI don't understand why HN is so obsessed with gut bacteria. I don't oppose posting it, I just don't understand the fascination.
- justinator 10y agoThere's evidence that gut flora have a hand in many diseases including obesity, Crohn's, depression, etc. We know so little about it, as is the case with many of the details of our body's daily functions.
- scifitrifi 10y agoOur gut bacteria is the interested party - not our brains. Microbiomes are really excited to finally be getting some press for all their hard work.
- bbarn 10y agoI suspect, from my own anecdata, it's because a great many of us in the field have had gut issues. A lot of us lead lifestyles that aren't necessarily the greatest (although I feel overall that old adage is changing for the better rapidly) and have a deep interest in fixing the problem. Plus, knowing how things work, biological, electrical, whatever.. it all fits the hacker ethos
- spacecop 10y agoFinding shortcuts is literally hacking. Let's shortcut our way to good health by reading Wikipedia instead of seeing a doctor. Okay then
- reitanqild 10y agoNo, not instead of as in "never see a doctor" but rather as trying to be smart about things you can do yourself. For example: Healthier lifestyle: do you need to consult a doctor to decide to cut down smoking or even stop it? (No) Start exercising? (Most likely, no, thise few who need will likely know.) Changing your diet? (No, unless you are doing something very special.) Picking up some basic skills also means you can treat smaller issues yourself. I keep iodine solution, painkillers, and wrapping bandages for smaller sprains readily available at home. Leave antibiotica, wounds beyond scratches (could have been infected by tetanus or other nasty stuff) to the professionals.
- gus_massa 10y ago> Every mammal mother produces complex sugars called oligosaccharides, but human mothers, for some reason, churn out an exceptional variety: so far, scientists have identified more than two hundred human milk oligosaccharides, or H.M.O.s. The second part is very suspicious or at least misleading. I guess that chimpanzees and bonobos have a similar milk composition.
- jacalata 10y ago> A study recently published in the Journal of Proteome Research details how human milk has a stunning 1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth - a cocktail of many key nutrients that other mammals' milk does not boast. By comparison, the mother's milk of rhesus macaque monkeys - one of humanity's closest primitive relatives - boasts only 518 key proteins. (http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/13528/20150319/humans-need-stronger-breast-milk-thank-mammals.htm http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/13528/20150319/human...)
- refurb 10y ago1,606 different protein types essential for newborn growth I read that as "if the baby doesn't get all 1,606 of this proteins, it won't develop normally." That sounds like a ridiculous statement.
- yawz 10y agoRegarding the Microbiome, I'm currently reading Rodney Dietert's "The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life". I haven't finished it yet, but it's been a great read so far. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906]
- ralfd 10y agoWhy did you post this a second time under another account? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12163740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12163740
- wodenokoto 10y agoNice catch!
- Evgeny 10y agoAnother good book on the subject is "The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZ0TOV2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZ0TOV2
- Cletusstok 10y agoRegarding the Microbiome, I'm currently reading Rodney Dietert's "The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life". I haven't finished it yet, but it's been a great read so far. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101983906]