Transenteric signalling: Mammary messages or white noise?

Abstract

It has long been known that breast-feeding does more than simply nourish the baby. Human milk contains a large number of so-called non-nutritional substances. Those that have been most fully studied are protective factors, such as immunoglobulin A (IgA) and lactoferrin, which have been shown to defend the neonatal gut from the adverse affects of microorganisms and foreign food proteins. However, an abundance of other substances in milk, many 'bioactive' such as hormones and trophic factors, has raised the suggestion that some may be messages from mother, destined to play a role in infant metabolism. To make the journey from maternal breast to infant circulation such 'signals' must pass across the infant gut wall intact on their way to their site of action. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.