April 24, 2023 – Parents of newborns know that the contents of their babies’ diapers have a story to tell, such as how the last feeding was passed or if the baby is drinking enough. Scientists in Denmark wanted to know more about what can cause people to develop diseases, so they turned to diapers, too.
The researchers found 10,000 stories, in the form of viruses, many of which had never been identified before.
“Specifically, we’re trying to figure out how having certain gut bacteria in childhood can protect you from developing chronic diseases later in life,” said researcher Shiraz Shah, PhD, in a blog post describing the studywhich was published this month in microbiology of nature.
Shah and her colleagues at the Copenhagen Prospective Studies for Asthma in Childhood recruited mothers during pregnancy, who agreed to enroll their babies in the study after birth. The diapers were collected when the babies were 1 year old and the children are now 12 years old. The diaper analysis was the first step in the study, which has the long-term goal of identifying the causes of chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma, eczema and allergies.
The researchers were surprised by the large number of viruses they found.
“Our current working hypothesis is that viral loads are elevated in the infant’s gut because the immune system is still maturing,” Shah wrote.
The next analysis will examine diapers from when the babies were 1 week and 1 month old to see if all 10,000 types of viruses were present at those early ages. Later analyzes will look at whether certain viruses were able to protect children from getting diseases like asthma or ADHD.
The children in the study will continue to provide information, and researchers will continue to look at the connections between the gut and serious disease.
“We believe that many chronic diseases begin in early childhood, even if symptoms appear much later. Our setup allows us to test this,” Shah wrote. “For now, at least we know that having a gut full of viruses should be a natural part of being a baby.”
What to call these new viruses that have never been seen before? the researchers called after the babies who contributed diapers to the study.
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