Role of Hormones and Bioactive Components in Breast Milk on Development of Metabolic, Neural and Behavioral Systems in Offspring

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Background

Breast milk in mammals is an important source of nutrients, hormones, microbiota, and bioactive compounds that are essential for the development, growth, and maturation of the offspring. Breast milk has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anticarcinogenic, and immunological properties, as well as promotes the development of the digestive and nervous systems. The concentrations of hormones, enzymes, probiotics, and nutritional factors, such as lipophilic micronutrients (e.g., vitamins) and proteins, in milk changes during lactation according to the needs and stage of development of the offspring. For example, there are significant concentrations of biologically active hormones in milk during the first postnatal days (colostrum), a critical period of development, and these hormones work synchronously with the input of sensory and social stimuli from the mother and littermates for the development and maturation of the progeny.

Although milk is an important source of beneficial compounds that are transmitted from the environment to the mother and from the mother to the offspring, harmful substances can also be transmitted in this manner, including drugs, toxins, contaminants, and pathogens (virus, bacteria, fungus). Such compounds can negatively impact the growth, maturation, and health of the offspring. In the case of humans, although bottle feeding does not affect the survival of infants (infant formulas contain necessary nutrients), it does have subtle negative effects on health, behavior, and cognition. For this reason, the World Health Organization emphasizes the importance of breast feeding and suggests that infants be breast fed for at least the first six months after delivery. Much information exists in the literature on breast milk; however, information related to the intestinal absorption of hormones and other bioactive compounds, their metabolism, their target tissues and mechanisms of action, and their ultimate effects on development are just beginning to be elucidated.

The aim of this Research Topic is to integrate recent findings gained from various research models related to the role of bioactive components of breast milk, such as hormones, enzymes, probiotics, and growth factors, for the development and maturation of metabolic, affective, cognitive, immune, neuroendocrine, and behavioral systems, as well as for the health of the offspring.

We welcome reviews, methodology articles, original research, articles of opinion and perspectives of the field and proposals of strategies to encourage breast feeding in mothers from different communities (rural, urban) and within hospital health services.

Articles in this Research Topic should include studies in human, non-human primate, rodent, ovine, and canine models, in the following thematic areas:

• New hormones or bioactive components found in breast milk of humans and animal models.

• Hormones in milk and development of physiological systems (e.g., digestive, nervous) of the offspring.

• Bioactive components in milk and their effects on the development of metabolic, neural, immunological, emotional, and other systems.

• Impact of probiotics in milk on the gut-brain axis of the progeny.

• Composition of hormones, bioactive compounds and probiotics throughout lactation.

• Toxins, contaminants (organohalogen such as dioxines and polychlorinated biphenyls; PCBs) and pathogens in milk and their effects of offspring´s health.

• Combined actions of nursing (mother-child interaction) and breast milk components on the development of the progeny.

• Intestinal absorption of hormones and other bioactive compounds

Keywords: Breast milk, colostrus, hormones, bioactive compounds, toxins, breastfeeding, development, metabolism, progeny, probiotics, humans, animal models.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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