Episode 3.1: Shelley McGuire — Human Breast Milk

“Each milk sample that we looked at was full of a rich and diverse bacteri[um] And we now really believe that that milk — what we call microbiome or the microbes in milk, the bacteria in milk — are really setting up the baby’s intestinal track to have a healthy microbiome, which we now think is incredibly important for health. For long-term health and short-term health.” Meet Shelley McGuire (bit.ly/3dm8Aod), a professor in the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences (bit.ly/3dncAER) at the University of Idaho. Breast milk contains all the nutrients, fats, proteins and other components a baby needs to grow. But it turns out we know very little about breast milk. Shelley has been studying human — and even cow — breast milk her entire career and has studied everything from the microbes living in milk to whether the virus that causes COVID-19 can be transferred from mother to child. Visit our website go.uidaho.edu/thevandaltheory​. Email us at [email protected]. Learn about Idaho’s premier research university, University of Idaho, at uidaho.edu. More U of I Research: University of Idaho researchers are leading a nearly $6 million National Science Foundation cooperative agreement to use large and complex data sets to improve prediction and response measures for tick-borne diseases. Read more (bit.ly/3duPoob). U of I virologist Paul Rowley is using mammalian cell cultures and a viral agent similar to the virus that causes COVID-19 to test whether the virus can use farm animals or North American bats as intermediate hosts to spread. Read more (bit.ly/3iUDuVP). Professor Lisette Waits and former doctoral student Robert Lonsinger found that an increase in exotic and intrusive plants across the high desert region of the Great Basin increased coyote populations and decreased rabbit populations. Over several decades, this population shift led to a tenfold decline of kit foxes, which is a species of concern. Read more (bit.ly/311sRud). Music: “Young Republicans” by Steve Combs (bit.ly/2PsMCpw) via freemusicarchive.org, not modified (bit.ly/2Ju7MQb). “Centaurus Waltz” by Florian Decros (bit.ly/2FqoCkl) via freemusicarchive.org, not modified (bit.ly/2SRwWNe).