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Human milk-based synbiotic safely modulates damaged adult gut microbiomes; new research published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe

BOSTON, Mass., August 31, 2023 – Demonstrating a commitment to Advancing the Science of Human Milk®, Prolacta Bioscience® announced today that the…

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BOSTON, Mass., August 31, 2023 – Demonstrating a commitment to Advancing the Science of Human Milk®, Prolacta Bioscience® announced today that the peer-reviewed journal Cell Host & Microbe has published its study demonstrating that a synbiotic comprising human milk sugars, called human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and a strain of bacteria found in the gut of nursing infants, Bifidobacterium infantis (B. infantis), can safely and predictably control the gut microbiome in adults. 

This is the first time that scientists have been able to modulate the adult gut microbiome with significant precision. The prospect of “precision microbiome engineering” may open the door to the development of live biotherapeutic products that effectively reconstitute a damaged or out-of-balance microbiome, as is the case in numerous infectious, autoimmune, and metabolic disorders. 

For the last decade, researchers have been working on methods to engineer the gut microbiome in patients, drawing inspiration from the success of fecal microbiome transplants for treating Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infections. “While some of these attempts have been clinically successful, they have been quite crude and undefined, lacking in precision and reproducibility,” said Greg McKenzie, vice president of product innovation at Prolacta. 

In the current study “Precision Modulation of Dysbiotic Adult Microbiomes With a Human Milk-Derived Synbiotic Reshapes Gut Microbial Composition and Metabolites,” researchers from Prolacta, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center observed: 

Credit: Prolacta Bioscience

BOSTON, Mass., August 31, 2023 – Demonstrating a commitment to Advancing the Science of Human Milk®, Prolacta Bioscience® announced today that the peer-reviewed journal Cell Host & Microbe has published its study demonstrating that a synbiotic comprising human milk sugars, called human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and a strain of bacteria found in the gut of nursing infants, Bifidobacterium infantis (B. infantis), can safely and predictably control the gut microbiome in adults. 

This is the first time that scientists have been able to modulate the adult gut microbiome with significant precision. The prospect of “precision microbiome engineering” may open the door to the development of live biotherapeutic products that effectively reconstitute a damaged or out-of-balance microbiome, as is the case in numerous infectious, autoimmune, and metabolic disorders. 

For the last decade, researchers have been working on methods to engineer the gut microbiome in patients, drawing inspiration from the success of fecal microbiome transplants for treating Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infections. “While some of these attempts have been clinically successful, they have been quite crude and undefined, lacking in precision and reproducibility,” said Greg McKenzie, vice president of product innovation at Prolacta. 

In the current study “Precision Modulation of Dysbiotic Adult Microbiomes With a Human Milk-Derived Synbiotic Reshapes Gut Microbial Composition and Metabolites,” researchers from Prolacta, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center observed: 

  • HMOs support engraftment of B. infantis in healthy adults with a median observed abundance of 45.9% and up to 81% relative abundance in antibiotic-treated adults; no serious adverse events were observed.  
     
  • Microbiome structure and gut metabolite levels were altered in engrafted subjects. When B. infantis was present, other members of the microbiome that are not directly influenced by HMOs changed in a reproducible manner. One notable example was a microbe called Veillonella that feeds on molecules produced by B. infantis and subsequently generates metabolites that are beneficial to human health.

“These findings are incredibly exciting, as we are starting to do ecology in the human microbiome,” said Julie Button, Ph.D., director, non-clinical development at Prolacta. “The reproducibility of cross-feeding Veillonella is really striking, as this magnitude of downstream effects are normally seen only when treating patients with antibiotics.” 

“We expect that this human milk-based synbiotic will have the power to repair the microbiome of sick patients using the same biology that establishes a healthy microbiome in infants,” said Scott Elster, CEO of Prolacta. “We plan to demonstrate what is essentially `Nature’s Microbiome Starter Kit’ in extremely fragile stem cell transplant patients in a Phase 2a clinical trial starting in Q3 2023.”

About Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) and B. infantis
Human breast milk contains high concentrations of a collection of approximately 200 structurally diverse sugars called HMOs.1 Unlike the nutritional components of breast milk, HMOs are not metabolized as an energy source by the infant. Instead, HMOs serve to guide the growth of appropriate bacteria in the gut, which helps to train the infant’s immune system.2 In this way, HMOs support protective responses such as suppression of inflammation and improved intestinal barrier function to minimize infections.3 

One species of “good” bacteria in the infant gut that is known to influence these protective responses is B. infantis, which is unique in its ability to utilize the HMOs in human breast milk. After infants are weaned from human milk, B. infantis levels decline into adulthood.4 

Study Details
This unblinded clinical study enrolled 56 healthy adult subjects. A control group completed a five-day course of antibiotics (known to disrupt gut bacteria) with no other intervention. A second group received the same course of antibiotics along with B. infantis for 14 days, and a third group additionally received HMOs for 28 days. Stool and blood were collected at set intervals for a total of 35 days. This trial built upon prior research from the same investigators published in 2022 in which it was observed that dosing with a synbiotic of HMOs and B. infantis led to controllable, HMO-dependent engraftment of B. infantis in healthy adult subjects.5 

Phase 2a Investigational New Drug (IND) Trial 
This fall, Prolacta will initiate a Phase 2a Investigational New Drug (IND) trial to evaluate the human milk-based synbiotic in patients undergoing stem cell transplant for blood cancers. Patients undergoing stem cell transplant often have disruptions in their gut microbiome, including an increase in numbers of potentially disease-causing species of bacteria and an overall loss of diversity.6 This leaves patients prone to opportunistic infections and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which can result in multi-organ attack and mortality.7 The study will measure how well the synbiotic drives redevelopment of a healthy microbiome, like it does naturally in the newborn gut.

About Prolacta Bioscience 
Prolacta Bioscience® Inc. is a privately held, global life sciences company dedicated to Advancing the Science of Human Milk® to improve the health of critically ill patients. As the world’s leading provider of human milk-based products for hospital use, Prolacta is exploring the therapeutic potential of human milk across a wide spectrum of diseases. The company’s products have been evaluated in more than 20 peer-reviewed clinical studies. Prolacta maintains the industry’s strictest quality and safety standards, and has developed, validated, and implemented more than 20 tests for the screening and testing of human milk. Prolacta’s human milk-based products are vat pasteurized using a patented, FDA-reviewed manufacturing process to ensure pathogen inactivation while protecting the nutritional composition and bioactivity of human milk. Established in 1999 and headquartered in Duarte, Calif., Prolacta operates the world’s first and only pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing facilities for the testing and processing of human milk. Learn more at prolacta.com, on X, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.   

References 

  1. Moukarzel S, Bode L. Human milk oligosaccharides and the preterm infant: a journey in sickness and in health. Clin Perinatol. 2017;44(1):193-207. doi:10.1016/j.clp.2016.11.014
  2. Wicinski M, Sawicka E, Gebalski J, et al. Human milk oligosaccharides: health benefits, potential applications in infant formulas and pharmacology. Nutrients. 2020 Jan;12(1):266. doi: 10.3390/nu12010266 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7019891/
  3. Chichlowski M, Shah N, Wampler JL, et al. Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis (B. infantis) in pediatric nutrition: current state of knowledge. Nutrients. 2020 Jun;12(6):1581. Published online 2020 May 28. doi: 10.3390/nu12061581 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7352178/
  4. Arboleya S, Watkins C, Stanton C, et al. Gut bifidobacteria populations in human health and aging. Front Microbiol. 2016;7:1204. Published online 2016 Aug 19. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.01204 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4990546/ 
  5. Button JE, et al. Dosing a synbiotic of human milk oligosaccharide and B. infantis leads to reversible engraftment in healthy adult microbiomes without antibiotics. Cell Host Microbe. 2022;30(5):712-725. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2022.04.001
  6. National Cancer Institute. Health of Gut Microbes May Affect Survival After Stem Cell Transplant. https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2020/microbiome-health-survival-stem-cell-transplant. Accessed August 9, 2023.
  7. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Graft-Versus-Host Disease. https://www.lls.org/treatment/types-treatment/stem-cell-transplantation/graft-versus-host-disease. Accessed August 9, 2023.

Journal

Cell Host & Microbe

DOI

10.1016/j.chom.2023.08.004

Article Title

Precision Modulation of Dysbiotic Adult Microbiomes With a Human Milk-Derived Synbiotic Reshapes Gut Microbial Composition and Metabolites

Article Publication Date

31-Aug-2023

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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March 8, 2024

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January…

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March 8, 2024

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January jobs report was the "most ridiculous in recent history" but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush. 

What happened? Let's take a closer look.

On the surface, it was (almost) another blockbuster jobs report, certainly one which nobody expected, or rather just one bank out of 76 expected. Starting at the top, the BLS reported that in February the US unexpectedly added 275K jobs, with just one research analyst (from Dai-Ichi Research) expecting a higher number.

Some context: after last month's record 4-sigma beat, today's print was "only" 3 sigma higher than estimates. Needless to say, two multiple sigma beats in a row used to only happen in the USSR... and now in the US, apparently.

Before we go any further, a quick note on what last month we said was "the most ridiculous jobs report in recent history": it appears the BLS read our comments and decided to stop beclowing itself. It did that by slashing last month's ridiculous print by over a third, and revising what was originally reported as a massive 353K beat to just 229K,  a 124K revision, which was the biggest one-month negative revision in two years!

Of course, that does not mean that this month's jobs print won't be revised lower: it will be, and not just that month but every other month until the November election because that's the only tool left in the Biden admin's box: pretend the economic and jobs are strong, then revise them sharply lower the next month, something we pointed out first last summer and which has not failed to disappoint once.

To be fair, not every aspect of the jobs report was stellar (after all, the BLS had to give it some vague credibility). Take the unemployment rate, after flatlining between 3.4% and 3.8% for two years - and thus denying expectations from Sahm's Rule that a recession may have already started - in February the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 2022 (with Black unemployment spiking by 0.3% to 5.6%, an indicator which the Biden admin will quickly slam as widespread economic racism or something).

And then there were average hourly earnings, which after surging 0.6% MoM in January (since revised to 0.5%) and spooking markets that wage growth is so hot, the Fed will have no choice but to delay cuts, in February the number tumbled to just 0.1%, the lowest in two years...

... for one simple reason: last month's average wage surge had nothing to do with actual wages, and everything to do with the BLS estimate of hours worked (which is the denominator in the average wage calculation) which last month tumbled to just 34.1 (we were led to believe) the lowest since the covid pandemic...

... but has since been revised higher while the February print rose even more, to 34.3, hence why the latest average wage data was once again a product not of wages going up, but of how long Americans worked in any weekly period, in this case higher from 34.1 to 34.3, an increase which has a major impact on the average calculation.

While the above data points were examples of some latent weakness in the latest report, perhaps meant to give it a sheen of veracity, it was everything else in the report that was a problem starting with the BLS's latest choice of seasonal adjustments (after last month's wholesale revision), which have gone from merely laughable to full clownshow, as the following comparison between the monthly change in BLS and ADP payrolls shows. The trend is clear: the Biden admin numbers are now clearly rising even as the impartial ADP (which directly logs employment numbers at the company level and is far more accurate), shows an accelerating slowdown.

But it's more than just the Biden admin hanging its "success" on seasonal adjustments: when one digs deeper inside the jobs report, all sorts of ugly things emerge... such as the growing unprecedented divergence between the Establishment (payrolls) survey and much more accurate Household (actual employment) survey. To wit, while in January the BLS claims 275K payrolls were added, the Household survey found that the number of actually employed workers dropped for the third straight month (and 4 in the past 5), this time by 184K (from 161.152K to 160.968K).

This means that while the Payrolls series hits new all time highs every month since December 2020 (when according to the BLS the US had its last month of payrolls losses), the level of Employment has not budged in the past year. Worse, as shown in the chart below, such a gaping divergence has opened between the two series in the past 4 years, that the number of Employed workers would need to soar by 9 million (!) to catch up to what Payrolls claims is the employment situation.

There's more: shifting from a quantitative to a qualitative assessment, reveals just how ugly the composition of "new jobs" has been. Consider this: the BLS reports that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Well, that's great... until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

Here is a summary of the labor composition in the past year: all the new jobs have been part-time jobs!

But wait there's even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!

The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!

Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...

Source: St Louis Fed FRED Native Born and Foreign Born

... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since June 2018!

This is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...

... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why Biden's handlers will do everything in their power to insure there is no official recession before November... and why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get even more ridiculous.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 13:30

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