WORLD | Microbes for growth | Julie Borg | April 2, 2016

I was interested to read that bacteria may be a low cost approach to helping malnourished children. Bacteria have been used to clean up oil spills and plastic waste in the seas and rivers. Probiotics have been marked and recommended for some time. It would be wonderful if a strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus would be able to significantly help malnourished children.
"Microbes for growth
SCIENCE | Good bacteria could alleviate effects of malnutrition By JULIE BORG
Childhood malnutrition can cause developmental delays, cognitive impairment, susceptibility to infections, and permanently stunted growth. It is also responsible for one-third of childhood deaths worldwide.
Now, three new studies published in February suggest that manipulating the gut bacteria of nutritionally deprived children may help to protect them from the usual health effects.
In one study, published in Science, researchers planted gut bacteria from both healthy and malnourished children into the guts of mice bred to be germ-free. Despite consuming the same amount of calories, the mice that were colonized with bacteria from healthy children grew bigger than those colonized with bacteria from malnourished children.
A separate team of researchers in France, also publishing in Science, found that chronic malnutrition in mice resulted in growth hormone resistance that stunted growth. But they were able to eliminate growth hormone resistance by colonizing undernourished mice with a strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus.
In a third study, published in Cell, researchers compared the growth of germ-free mice with that of mice colonized with the gut bacteria of malnourished children. They discovered the bacteria-colonized mice grew bigger when they received sialic acid, a sugar present in milk, but the germ-free mice did not. They concluded that growth may be promoted by the byproducts released when bacteria consume sialic acid.
The researchers still need to determine whether humans would experience the same results as the mice in these experiments. If so, new probiotic food additives, once tested for safety, could help ensure fewer children suffer the effects of under-nutrition."