N4 Breast Milk and Infant Formula
Breast milk is the optimal food for young infants and is associated to improved neurodevelopment and reduced risk of infections. Still, a small proportion of infants (about 10% in Sweden) are not able to breast-feed and infant formula has been developed to cover the nutritional needs for these infants. Breast-milk contains a large number of bioactive components which are not present in infant formula.
An important aim for the N4 Research Group is to identify bioactive components that may be added to infant formula in order to achieve health outcomes similar to breast-fed infants. We have shown in the TUMME study that addition of milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) to infant formula improves cognitive development and reduces the risk of infections in infants.
N-FORTE; a randomized, controlled trial, which tested whether a human milk-based fortifier (vs. a regular cow’s milk-based fortifier) reduces the risk of NEC, sepsis and death in extremely preterm infants. The primary outcome was published 2024 in Lancet eClinicalMedicine and shows that the intervention did not have any effect on the NEC, sepsis and death. Further studies from this project as well as follow-up results are forthcoming.
GRANDIOSA (Growth, Allergy and Neurodevelopment in Infants on Hydrolysed Formula) is a randomized, controlled trial examining two new partially hydrolysed infant formulae and how they affect children’s growth, neurological development, bowel function and allergies.
