Gut microbiome trajectory, immunity, and clinical implications

Early life gut microbiome maturation is characterized by a temporal acquisition, colonization, and selection of microbes with different functionalities. The timely and age appropriate microbiome maturation represent important windows of opportunity for immune competence development. Different nutrition components, such as breastmilk and introduction of complementary feeding, are important to drive an age appropriate microbiome maturation. Today, an age appropriate gut microbiome maturation is generally acknowledged to be important and observations indicate that an accelerated microbiome maturation during the first months or a delayed maturation after 6 months of age affects long term immune health of a child.