ArticleEvolution, medicine, and public health2018
Variation among populations in the immune protein composition of mother's milk reflects subsistence pattern.
Article in Evolution, medicine, and public health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of foraging as lifestyle, livelihood, and landscape management strategy.Ambio · 2026Pooled it
- The Ecology and Human Biology of Pastoralists: Building on the Contributions of Michael A. Little.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Deciphering HIV vaccine-induced antibody response according to ethnicity.AIDS (London, England) · 2025Article
- Human milk whey proteins: Constituents, influencing factors, detection methods, and comparative analysis with other sources.Food chemistry: X · 2025Review
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- How market integration impacts human disease ecology.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Human milk immune factors, maternal nutritional status, and infant sex: The INSPIRE study.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2023Article
- Article
- Minimally invasive biomarkers in human and non-human primate evolutionary biology: Tools for understanding variation and adaptation.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Article
- Human Milk Oligosaccharide Compositions Illustrate Global Variations in Early Nutrition.The Journal of nutrition · 2022Article
- Tradeoffs in milk immunity affect infant infectious disease risk.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2022Article
- The Breast Milk Immunoglobulinome.Nutrients · 2021Review
- Editorial: Food Proteomes: Beyond Their Nutritional Value.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
- Comparative Proteomics of Human Milk From Eight Cities in China During Six Months of Lactation in the Chinese Human Milk Project Study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
- The COVID-19 liquid gold rush: Critical perspectives of human milk and SARS-CoV-2 infection.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2020Review
- Changes in Human Milk Immunoglobulin Profile During Prolonged Lactation.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Article
- Diversity and temporal dynamics of primate milk microbiomes.American journal of primatology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 11 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
lay summaryAdaptive immune proteins in mothers' milk are more variable than innate immune proteins across populations and subsistence strategies. These results suggest that the immune defenses in milk are shaped by a mother's environment throughout her life. BACKGROUND AND
objectivesMother's milk contains immune proteins that play critical roles in protecting the infant from infection and priming the infant's developing immune system during early life. The composition of these molecules in milk, particularly the acquired immune proteins, is thought to reflect a mother's immunological exposures throughout her life. In this study, we examine the composition of innate and acquired immune proteins in milk across seven populations with diverse disease and cultural ecologies. METHODOLOGY: Milk samples (
resultsBoth innate and acquired immune protein composition in milk varied among populations, though the acquired immune protein composition of milk differed more among populations. Populations living in closer geographic proximity or having similar subsistence strategies (e.g. agro-pastoralists from Nepal and Namibia) had more similar milk immune protein compositions. Agro-pastoralists had different milk innate immune protein composition from horticulturalist-foragers and urban-industrialists. Acquired immune protein composition differed among all subsistence strategies except horticulturist-foragers and rural-shop. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Our results reveal fundamental variation in milk composition that has not been previously explored in human milk research. Further study is needed to understand what specific aspects of the local environment influence milk composition and the effects this variation may have on infant health outcomes.
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