Hello Health Rounds readers! Today we feature two studies from a single journal: Science Advances, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One paper reports on the discovery of genes linked with milk supply during breastfeeding, and the other describes a new approach to preventing illness from influenza. 

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Three genes have been identified that may influence a woman’s milk supply when she is trying to breastfeed, researchers say.

While the precise role of the genes isn’t clear yet, the findings “will pave the way for more research in the area of milk production… and future studies will assist in our understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of breastfeeding difficulties,” they wrote in a report published in Science Advances.

In fresh breast milk samples donated by nine lactating people with low milk production, seven with high milk production, and 14 with normal milk production, the researchers analyzed the genetic makeup of milk fat globules and of cells that had come from the lining of the milk duct.

Low and high milk producers had differences in cell types and in levels of three genes called GLP1R, PLIN4, KLF10.

Because breastmilk delivers the mother's beneficial bacteria to the infant's intestines, the researchers also wanted to know whether genes affecting milk volume would also affect the health and variety of the baby's gut bacteria, which play a key role in immune, metabolic, and nervous system functions. 

Mothers’ milk supply levels did not impact the babies’ intestinal bacteria, or microbiome, they found.

“These findings further support the messaging that individuals with low milk supply should be encouraged to continue partial breastfeeding to support healthy infant microbiome development,” the researchers said.

A three-antibody cocktail protected mice from nearly every strain of influenza tested in recent experiments, including bird flu and swine flu strains that pose pandemic threats, researchers have reported.

“This is the first time we’ve seen such broad and lasting protection against flu” in living creatures, study leader Silke Paust of The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut said in a statement.

“Even when we gave the therapy days after infection, most of the treated mice survived.”

Unlike currently available flu treatments, which target viral enzymes and can quickly become useless as the virus mutates, the antibody cocktail targets a protein called M2e that forms a layer between the viral envelope and the inner components of the virus.

“The virus didn’t mutate away even when using individual antibodies,” Paust said. “But in a flu season with millions of people taking this therapy, I would be much more confident that we can prevent escape from the therapy if we use the cocktail.”

Even after a month of repeated exposure in animals, the targeted protein remained nearly unchanged, the researchers reported in Science Advances.

The antibodies in the new cocktail are “non-neutralizing.” Instead of preventing infection, they tag infected lung cells and recruit the body’s immune system to clear the infection.

This approach challenges a long-held belief that for antibodies to be useful as a therapy against viruses they must be “neutralizing” antibodies that bind directly to viruses and block them from infecting cells, the researchers said.

This new approach could reshape how scientists design treatments for other viruses, they added.

“The majority of antibodies our bodies make are non-neutralizing, but medicine has largely ignored them,” Paust explained. “We show they can be lifesaving.”