Dirty diapers provide data on babies’ gut biome

THE study examined the feces of 647 healthy one-year-old Danish children enrolled in a long-term study of asthma and chronic inflammatory diseases. Children’s dirty diapers have produced a surprisingly diverse set of viruses, many of which have yet to be described by science. Overall, the researchers discovered 10,000 viral species from 248 viral families; among these families, only 16 were already known.

Viruses were 10 times more abundant than bacterial species in children’s faeces; 90% of them were bacteriophages, which attack bacteria instead of human cells. These bacteriophages do not cause disease; instead, they are thought to shape the competitive abilities of bacteria and balance bacterial populations in the gut microbiome.

Why are there so many viruses in the guts of children to begin with?

“Our hypothesis is that because the immune system has not yet learned to separate the wheat from the chaff by the age of one year, an extraordinarily high species richness of intestinal viruses emerges and is likely required to protect against chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes later in life,” said Shiraz Shah, lead researcher at the Copenhagen Prospective Studies of Childhood Asthma and first author of the study. Press release.

The researchers named the newly identified viral families after 232 of the participating infants themselves, including Amandaviridae, Benjaminviridae And Irisviridae.