M4EFaD - Gut microbiome changes associated with malnutrition

Malnutrition affects over 30 million infants annually and has profound immediate and enduring repercussions, with nearly half of child deaths under five linked to malnutrition. Survivors face lasting consequences, including impaired neurocognitive development, leading to cognitive and behavioural deficits, impacting academic performance and socioeconomic outcomes. Despite extensive literature on malnutrition's associations with infections, metabolism, microbiome, and genomics, knowledge gaps persist around how these changes are mechanistically connected. The objective of this study was to identify gut microbiome mediated associations between malnourishment and cognitive development in infants with moderate acute malnutrition.