Milk miracle: New Zealand AgResearch scientists eye new baby booster

Scientists are trying to understand how a recently-discovered and naturally-occurring part of milk, called extracellular vesicles, or EVs, could have a role in how babies grow and develop.

Dr Mark McCann calls milk a miracle food.And for good reason: over millions of years, it has evolved to cram all of the energy and nutrients we need in early life into one package.

“The sheer amount of growth that babies go through in the first 1000 days of life is astounding.”

McCann, a senior research scientist at AgResearch, said one important part of this period was how different organs and systems developed to boost our potential for good health over a lifetime.

“An example of this is our gut, which must very quickly adapt to good and bad bugs that we are exposed to in our environment and work effectively with our immune systems.”

McCann and fellow scientists have been trying to understand how a recently-discovered and naturally-occurring part of milk, called extracellular vesicles, or EVs, could have a role in how babies grow and develop.

These EVs are one way for cells to share information with each other so they can function properly.

One type of EV the researchers are particularly interested in are exosomes, as there is evidence that those derived from milk can not only survive digestion, but potentially interact with the complex biological pathways involved in early life development.

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