PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nhan T. Ho
AU  - Fan Li
AU  - Kathleen A. Lee-Sarwar
AU  - Hein M. Tun
AU  - Bryan Brown
AU  - Pia S. Pannaraj
AU  - Lianna F. Wood
AU  - Jeffrey M. Bender
AU  - Joanne E. Sordillo
AU  - Meghan B. Azad
AU  - Amanda L. Thompson
AU  - Scott T. Weiss
AU  - M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril
AU  - Augusto A. Litonjua
AU  - Anita L. Kozyrskyj
AU  - Heather B. Jaspan
AU  - Grace M. Aldrovandi
AU  - Louise Kuhn
TI  - Effects of exclusive breastfeeding on infant gut microbiota: a meta-analysis across studies and populations
AID  - 10.1101/292755
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 292755
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/31/292755.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/31/292755.full
AB  - Literature regarding the differences in gut microbiota between exclusively breastfed (EBF) and non-EBF infants is meager with large variation in methods and results. We performed a meta-analysis of seven studies (a total of 1825 stool samples from 684 infants) to investigate effects of EBF compared to non-EBF on infant gut microbiota across different populations. In the first 6 months of life, overall bacterial diversity, gut microbiota age, relative abundances of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes and microbial-predicted pathways related to carbohydrate metabolism were consistently increased; while relative abundances of pathways related to lipid, vitamin metabolism and detoxification were decreased in non-EBF vs. EBF infants. The perturbation in microbial-predicted pathways associated with non-EBF was larger in infants delivered by C-section than delivered vaginally. Longer duration of EBF mitigated diarrhea-associated gut microbiota dysbiosis and the effects of EBF persisted after 6 months of age. These consistent findings across vastly different populations suggest that one of the mechanisms of short and long-term benefits of EBF may be alteration in gut microbes.