Title: Gastrointestinal Tolerance, Growth and Safety of a Partly Fermented Formula with Specific Prebiotics in Healthy Infants: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Controlled Trial
| Authors: | Alfonso Rodriguez-Herrera, Kelly Mulder, Hetty Bouritius, Rocio Rubio, Antonio Muñoz, Massimo Agosti, Gianluca Lista, Luigi Corvaglia, Thomas Ludwig, Marieke Abrahamse-Berkeveld, Juan L. Perez-Navero |
| Published: | July 5, 2019 |
| Journal: | Nutrients 2019, 11(7), 1530 |
Nutrients recently published the article titled “Gastrointestinal tolerance, growth and safety of a partly fermented formula with specific prebiotics in healthy infants“. This article is the first full paper of the LIFE study.
The LIFE study evaluated the effect of an infant formula combining a specific prebiotic mixture (short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides (scGOS) and long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides (lcFOS) 9:1) with postbiotics (produced in a fermentation process using the bacterial strains Bifidobacterium breve C50 and Streptococcus thermophilus 065) on the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms, stool characteristics, sleeping and crying behavior, growth adequacy and safety.
Two-hundred infants ≤ 28 days of age were assigned either to the experimental infant formula or to a control infant formula without prebiotics and postbiotics. A group of breastfed infants served as a reference.
No relevant differences in parent-reported gastrointestinal symptoms were observed. Stool consistency was softer in the experimental vs control group with values closer to the breastfed reference group. Daily weight gain was equivalent for both formula groups (0.5SD margins) with growth outcomes close to breastfed infants. No clinically relevant differences in adverse events were observed. However, investigators reported a lower prevalence of infantile colic in the experimental vs control group (1.1% vs 8.7%; P < 0.02).
Read the full publication here
More information on prebiotics and postbiotics can be found in the booklet ‘The Biotics Family in Early Life‘.
