Host-microbiome determinants of ready-to-use supplemental food efficacy in acute childhood malnutrition.

ABSTRACT: BackgroundReady-to-use supplemental foods (RUSF) are energy-dense meals used to treat moderate and severe acute childhood malnutrition. Weight recovery with RUSF is heterogeneous, therefore we investigated whether environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), systemic inflammation, and gut microbiota predict RUSF response.MethodsWe followed nutritional status and RUSF outcomes in a rural birth cohort of 416 Pakistani infants. Acha Mum, a chickpea-based RUSF, was administered daily for 8 weeks to children who developed wasting (weight-for-length Z-score <-2).ResultsOf 187 treated with RUSF, 112 showed no immediate improvement in weight-for-age. Machine learning identified nine biomarkers that collectively predicted RUSF response with 73% accuracy. Gut microbiome composition before and after supp

SUBMITTER: Jamil Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12288982 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature