Certain proteins in breast milk found to be essential for a baby’s healthy gut

More than 320 million years of mammalian evolution has adapted breast milk to meet all the physiological needs of babies: It contains not only nutrients, but also hormones, antimicrobials, digestive enzymes, and growth factors. Furthermore, many of the proteins in breast milk, for example casein and milk fat globule membrane proteins, aren’t just sources of energy and molecular building blocks, but also directly stimulate immunity, at least under preclinical conditions.

Death rates after first heart attack have gone down for those without diabetes or with type 2 diabetes, but not type 1

New research to be presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Hamburg, Germany (2–6 October) shows that following a heart attack, there have been falls in the death rates of both people without diabetes and those with type 2 diabetes, but not those with type 1 diabetes. The study is by Dr. Linn Glynn, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues.