Malnutrition, and a Battle of the Microbiota (Science Friday)

Is malnutrition due to more than just a lack of access to quality food? In work published this week in the journal Science, researchers first collected fecal samples from 6- and 18-month-old children in Malawi. Then, they transplanted those samples into mice fed a typical human Malawian diet. Mice that received samples from healthy children grew and developed better than those that received samples from malnourished children. They also found that the effects were somewhat contagious—a mouse that received one fecal transplant could pass on the associated microorganisms, and their health effects, to germ-free mice housed in the same cage. Jeffrey Gordon, one of the authors of the paper, says the work indicates that a “battle of the microbiota” taking place in the gut may play a significant role in health.