Influence of Singular First Foods on the Infant Gut Microbiome: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The gastrointestinal microbiome, integral to immune function, inflammation, and metabolism, becomes less malleable with age, making early dietary exposures, particularly first complementary foods (CFs), important in its development.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of different first CFs on the infant gut microbiome in a pilot, randomized, controlled trial.
METHODS
Vaginally delivered, exclusively human milk (HM) fed infants (n=43) with no prior CF exposure were randomized to one of four groups (oatmeal cereal, beef, carrot, prune) (NCT05492253). Infants were fed the randomized food (with HM) for one week (phase 1), followed by oatmeal cereal for another week (phase 2). Daily stool samples were collected and sequenced (full-length V1-V9 16S rRNA gene amplicons).
RESULTS
In phase 1, oatmeal cereal increased observed ASVs compared to beef (p=0.024). Prune increased Bacteroides ovatus (p=0.001) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (p=0.011), while oatmeal cereal increased Enterococcus spp. (p=0.030) relative to beef. In phase 2, oatmeal cereal following beef resulted in increased Shannon diversity (p=0.0497) and following prune increased Faith's phylogenetic diversity (p=0.015). Unweighted UniFrac distances differed when oatmeal cereal followed prune compared to continuing oatmeal cereal (p=0.042). Veillonella infantium increased with continued oatmeal cereal consumption compared to beef (p=0.002) or carrot (p=0.002) followed by oatmeal cereal. After prune, oatmeal cereal…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 43 participants or records.
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