Nestlé Nutrition Institute Workshop Series

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Human milk is the best source of infant nutrition and is recognized as a biological fluid vital for optimal growth and development. It has established short- and long-term benefits to infants and mothers. Sapiens' milk has coevolved with mammalian species for millennia which has resulted in this remarkable secretory product of nutrient-rich milk. The nutritional composition and nonnutritive bioactive factors in human milk are uniquely appropriate for the infant, which provides survival and healthy development...

The early development of taste and food pleasure plays an important role in children and has long-lasting influences on subsequent food preferences and choices. Infants are born with a surprisingly sensitive sense of taste - they have more widely distributed taste buds (about 10,000) than adults. Thus, preferences for a variety of food flavors and textures develop early, through milk-related flavor exposure, or even during pregnancy, allowing for an easier acceptance to healthy foods. Breastfeeding favors the acquisition of a taste for a variety of foods...

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The term "triple burden of malnutrition" refers to the coexistence of undernutrition (stunting and wasting), micronutrient deficiencies (often termed hidden hunger), and overnutrition (overweight and obesity). The three elements of the triple burden of malnutrition can be found simultaneously within many low-income populations and even within single families. There are common underlying causes to each element of the triple burden of malnutrition. In broad terms, these are as follows: poverty - a lack of access to the most nourishing foods; poor dietary choices - a lack of knowledge about what constitutes the most nourishing foods and a healthy diet; and food supply chain - production and marketing of cheap, low-quality foods...

Overnutrition, expressed as overweight and obesity, sometimes combined with inadequate micronutrient intake, coexists together with undernutrition as the major threats of malnutrition in children. Appropriate growth and metabolism of children have been extensively studied as to their association with future metabolic diseases. It is appreciated that early growth is controlled via the biochemical pathways that support organ and tissue growth and development, energy release from dietary intake, and production and release of hormones and growth factors regulating the biochemical processes...

Human milk contains all nutritive and bioactive compounds to give infants the best possible start in life. Human milk bioactives cover a broad range of components, including immune cells, antimicrobial proteins, microbes, and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). Over the last decade, HMOs have gained special attention as their industrial production has allowed the study of their structure-function relation in reductionist experimental setups. This has shed light on how HMOs steer microbiome and immune system development in early life but also how HMOs affect infant health (e...

Studies have shown a dramatic increase in the incidence and the prevalence of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disorders over the last several decades. Environmental triggers and nutrition are considered major contributors to this increase. The first 1,000 days of life, which is the period between conception and the first 2 years of age, is considered the time for environmental factors, such as nutrition, to exert their positive and most crucial effects on a child's health...

Dietary patterns (DPs) have shifted the focus in nutrition epidemiology away from being nutrient centered. Foods are consumed not as single nutrients but as a combination of dietary components interacting with each other. DPs are indicators of diet quality. Two approaches are used to derive them: the index-based and data-driven approaches, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Studies on diet-disease relationships are now concentrated on DPs. Most available studies are in adults, which emphasize the role of DPs as contributors to certain chronic diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and certain cancers...

The development of the microbiome within the human digestive tract starts at birth and continues up to approximately 3 years of age when the microbial ecosystem resembles a more adulthood-like state. The pace of colonization and diversification of the gut microbiota in the early stages of life has been linked to short- and long-term health outcomes. Characterizing optimal maturation of the ecosystem may help identifying adverse events that impair the process and also factors that support and guide it, such as diet...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Human milk is a dynamic, complex fluid that offers much more than nutrition to infants. The macronutrient content of human milk has been well characterized and described. However, human milk is not a simple matrix of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and micronutrients. The National Institutes of Health have defined bioactives in food as elements that "affect biological processes or substrates and hence have an impact on body function or condition and ultimately health." Bioactives are cells, anti-infectious and anti-inflammatory agents, growth factors, and prebiotics that are naturally present in human milk...

Donor milk (DM) is of increasing interest as primary nutritional source for preterm infants. Safe access requires special infrastructure, trained staff, sophisticated algorithms, and standard operating procedures as well as quality control measures. DM has limitations like low protein content and unpredictable composition of the other macronutrients, despite fortification frequently not meeting recommendations - both of them compromising growth. The first paragraph is devoted to COVID-19 and how it impacts processes of DM banking...

In preterm infants, the key goals of nutrition are to establish adequate growth and to contribute to appropriate neurodevelopmental outcome. In this context, the postdischarge period is crucial to establish catch-up growth and avoid wrong metabolic programming caused by overfeeding. Breastfeeding is strongly recommended, and for preterm infants the European Society for Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) suggests fortifying breastmilk after discharge up to term in appropriate growing infants and up to 3 months in growth-retarded infants...