Evolving Milk

Unlike WEIRD adults- Westernized, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic- far removed from the ancestral conditions that shaped our bodies and behavior, the breastfed infant develops within an “adaptively relevant environment.” As an integrated food, medicine, and signal, milk nourishes, protects, and informs the developing neonate through nutrients, immunofactors, and hormones. Importantly, milk varies across species, populations, individuals, and across time. Although breast milk is described as liquid gold, and breastfeeding as the gold standard of early life nutrition, scientists have yet to identify "liquid gold standards." Decoding mother’s milk is necessary to enhance precision medicine for the most fragile infants and children in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.