Maternal HIV infection can disrupt the gut microbiota development of infants
5 Oct 2016by Cristina Sáez
Worldwide each year more than a million infants are born to women infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus causing AIDS.
The Harvard Probiotics Symposium, “Gut health, microbiota & probiotics throughout the lifespan: Metabolic & brain function”, was held on September 15th and 16th at Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA).
Microbiome disruptions could explain HIV-exposed babies’ increased risk of morbidity and mortality
19 Sep 2016by Andreu Prados
It is already known that a reduction in gut microbial richness is the hallmark change of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, but how this dysbiosis is established in the HIV-exposed uninfected infant is poorly understood. A recent cross-sectional study, led by Dr. Grace M. Aldrovandi from the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in Los Angeles (USA), suggests that perturbations in the infant gut microbiome may explain the greater risk of morbidity and mortality in uninfected babies born to HIV-positive mothers.
How the transition to family foods may influence infant gut microbiota development
18 Apr 2016by Andreu Prados
A recent study, led by Dr. Tine Rask Licht, head of the Research Group for Microbiology and Immunology from the National Food Institute at Technical University of Denmark, found that the development and establishment of the infant gut microbiota at 9 months of age is primarily driven by the transition to family foods, independently of maternal obesity.
