Overview
- Researchers report B. longum infantis in about 70% of infants in sampled African and South Asian countries by two months, compared with under 2% in the UK, US, and Sweden.
- B. longum longum is established in roughly one third of Western infants by two months, versus fewer than 10% in the African and South Asian cohorts studied.
- The atlas expands low- and middle-income country representation by 12- to 17-fold over prior work, creating a substantially broader global reference.
- Analyses identify region-specific strains with metabolic genes tuned to local diets, including capacities for human milk substrates and plant glycans such as those linked to fonio millet in West Africa.
- Authors caution that many commercial infant probiotics may lack key metabolic loci found in local strains and call for trials of region-matched candidates, noting probiotics are generally not recommended for full-term infants but are sometimes used for premature babies.