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Summary
Almost 180 million children worldwide are stunted, a serious consequence disabling malnutrition, repeated infections of childhood, and sometimes irreversible damage. Now, new studies suggest that the intestinal microbiome plays a crucial role in the growth of the infant, sometimes promoting this even in the absence of a sufficient amount of calories that provide tantalizing clues, if preliminary, on possible new interventions . They show that microbial communities change as a baby ages, and when they do not poor nutrition leads to growth retardation and other problems. Working in mice with no germs shows providing the right human microbial communities can restore growth, probably by restoring the proper connections between growth hormone and insulin growth factor 1. And the supply of young mice with certain sugars generally provided in the breast milk helps ensure that the right microbial community gets established.
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