Can Synbiotic Dietary Pattern Predict Lactobacillales Strains in Breast Milk?

Abstract

Background: Human milk potentially includes probiotic Lactobacillales, an order of gram-positive bacteria that have the ability to ferment sugars to lactic acid. These bioactive agents may be affected by maternal dietary patterns. This study aimed to find out significant dietary patterns and their relation with the current presence of available Lactobacillales levels in breast milk. Materials and Methods: This comparative study was done in a clinic in Isfahan, Iran. A total number of 345 healthy mothers were assessed for major dietary patterns. Among identified patterns, two main patterns (synbiotic, n = 41; western, n = 132) were selected for comparison. Lactobacillales colonies were then counted in the breast milk samples. Analysis of covariance test was used to analyze the association between dietary patterns and breastfeeding. Results: Two significant dietary patterns (synbiotic and western) were identified through the factor analysis method. These patterns accounted for 34.41 of the cumulative variance in food groups (synbiotic pattern, 12.77; western pattern, 21.64). Synbiotic dietary pattern (syn.patt) was related to higher Lactobacillales counts (5.3 +/- 1.4 log CFU/g), whereas the lower number of Lactobacillales were detected from western dietary pattern (west.patt) (3.3 +/- 1.9 log CFU/g; p < 0.05). Conclusion: Syn.patt and west.patt can affect the Lactobacillales population; so, probiotic strains especially Lactobacillales may be improved by healthy syn.patt. This association should be confirmed by clinical trials.