Exclusive breastfeeding may decrease overall diversity of the infant gut microbiome with a shift towards dominance of bacterial taxa associated with lactose metabolism

Abstract

Breastfeeding has repeatedly been shown to be the ideal form of feeding for infant development, including its correlation with a reduced risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, allergies, and other health conditions. In particular, breastfeeding has been shown to influence the infant gut microbiome, which may then directly or indirectly impact overall health outcomes from infancy to adulthood. In this study, we hope to validate and further explore the effects of exclusive breastfeeding on the developing infant gut microbiota. Using the dataset generated by Rhee et al., we examined the differences in microbial diversity and composition between exclusively breastfed and non-exclusively breastfed infant gut microbiomes by comparing diversity metrics, differential and relative abundance analyses, and indicator taxa between the two feeding models. We found that the exclusively breastfed infants had lower alpha and beta diversity, and their bacterial taxa were dominated by those that were directly linked with lactose production or consumption within their gut microbiomes. Overall, these findings support the current literature surrounding the effect of feed-type on the infant gut microbiome.