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Stunted growth remains a severe complication of malnutrition in the developing world. Two new studies extend prior evidence of an altered gut microbiome in profoundly malnourished infants (NEJM JW Infect Dis Mar 2013 and Science 2013; 339:548).
In one study, the microbiota in 220 fecal samples from healthy Malawian infants and young children (aged 0.6–33.5 months) showed characteristic maturation over time. Fecal samples from a second cohort of 259 infants (aged 6–18 months) with varying nutritional statuses and degrees of stunted growth revealed that malnourished, stunted infants had more-immature microbiota for their age than healthy infants. Microbiota from healthy infants and from malnourished, stunted infants was transplanted into germ-…