Breastfeeding mothers produce COVID-19 antibodies capable of neutralizing virus
2021-02-10
(Press-News.org) MOSCOW, Idaho -- Feb. 9, 2021 -- Breastfeeding women with COVID-19 do not pass along the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their milk but do transfer milk-borne antibodies that are able to neutralize the virus, a multi-institutional team of researchers led by the University of Idaho reported.
The team analyzed 37 milk samples submitted by 18 women diagnosed with COVID-19. None of the milk samples were found to contain the virus, but nearly two-thirds of the samples did contain two antibodies specific to the virus.
"Taken together, our data do not support maternal-to-infant transmission of SARS-CoV-2 via milk," the researchers reported Tuesday in the journal mBio published by the American Society for Microbiology." These results support recommendations to continue breastfeeding during mild-to-moderate maternal COVID-19 illness."
U of I researchers Michelle "Shelley" McGuire and Mark A. McGuire led the work funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Shelley is a nutrition researcher focused on human milk and directs U of I's Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences. Mark is a lactation physiologist and directs the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station. Both are on the faculty of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Their research is featured on the CALS website, The Vandal Theory podcast and in U of I presentations.
The research team also includes scientists from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry;Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School; University of Rochester Medical Center; and Washington State University. The team now has enrolled nearly 50 women who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and has followed their progress with the disease for as long as two months.
The initial study published in mBio reported on the first group of 18 women who submitted milk samples. Results from the larger study funded by both the Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation are forthcoming, but the researchers are confident that they will support, expand and confirm the initial findings, Shelley said.
Earlier, the McGuires and their colleagues published a related review of scientific studies focused on coronaviruses in human milk and found that scant evidence exists about their presence or absence.
That work, published in Maternal & Child Nutrition in May, found only one study that tested human milk for the SARS coronavirus after that virus was detected in 2003. The review found no efforts to detect the subsequent and deadlier MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) coronavirus in human milk.
The dearth of knowledge spurred this multi-university effort, which is informing national and global guidance related to COVID-19 and breastfeeding, Shelley said.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-02-10
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Something lurks beneath the Arctic Ocean. While it's not a monster, it has largely remained a mystery.
According to 25 international researchers who collaborated on a first-of-its-kind study, frozen land beneath rising sea levels currently traps 60 billion tons of methane and 560 billion tons of organic carbon. Little is known about the frozen sediment and soil -- called submarine permafrost -- even as it slowly thaws and releases methane and carbon that could have significant impacts on climate.
To put into perspective the amount of greenhouse gases in submarine permafrost, humans have released about 500 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, said Sandia National Laboratories geosciences engineer ...
2021-02-10
The Texas Heart Institute (THI) has announced that a research team led by Dr. Mehdi Razavi, Director of Electrophysiology Clinical Research & Innovations, has developed a breakthrough new ex vivo benchtop system for evaluating the effects of ablation systems on excised tissues and assessing potential damage to collateral heart tissues. The unique system allows for fast and easy benchtop assessments rather than using costly in vivo tests. Critical findings associated with this innovation are outlined in a study published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Physiology.
The new ablation method evaluated by Dr. Razavi and team is being ...
2021-02-10
Washington, February 10, 2021--After the COVID-19 crisis hit last March, federal student aid applications among potential college freshmen in California dropped 14 percent between mid-March and mid-August, relative to prior years. While there were also initial declines in applications among current undergraduates and graduate students, these quickly recovered and ended 8 percent higher relative to prior years. The findings, published today in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, are from the first academic study conducted on this topic.
Using data from the ...
2021-02-10
ANN ARBOR, Mich. and VANCOUVER, B.C. (February 10, 2021) - After screening more than 1,100 independently assessed, point-of-care COVID-19 tests, researchers at NSF International and Novateur Ventures have identified 5 direct (antigen/RNA) tests for detection of acute infection and 6 indirect (antibody) tests for detection of prior infection that meet the recently published World Health Organization (WHO) "desirable" Target Product Profile (TPP) criteria. The researchers hope their work will help communities and healthcare systems make more informed decisions when choosing rapid, point-of-care COVID-19 ...
2021-02-10
About 1 in 9 mothers suffers from maternal depression, which can affect the mother-infant bond as well as infant development. Touch plays an important role in an infant's socio-emotional development. Mothers who are depressed are less likely to provide their babies with soothing touch, less able to detect changes in facial expressions, and more likely to have trouble regulating their own emotions. In addition, infants of depressed mothers exhibit similar brain functioning patterns as their depressed mothers, which also are linked to temperament characteristics. Infants of depressed mothers are at a high risk of atypical and ...
2021-02-10
NEWPORT, Ore. - Analyzing thousands of genetic markers in albacore tuna from the Pacific Ocean, researchers at Oregon State University have learned that just seven dozen of those markers are needed to determine which side of the equator a fish comes from.
The scientists also discovered that fish from different hemispheres intermingle and sometimes breed with each other.
Published Tuesday in Evolutionary Applications, the findings are an important step toward better understanding the population structure of a species that's a vital and inexpensive source of protein for people around the globe.
Albacore in the North and South Pacific Oceans are currently managed as separate ...
2021-02-10
Overview:
A color illusion that strongly induces color contrast effect has been found by a research team at the Toyohashi University of Technology Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS). The powerful visual illusion clarified a century-old contradiction relating to simultaneous color contrast theory. Through a human psychophysical experiment, the team demonstrated that the presence or absence of flanking contours formed from extremely thin white lines could be used to switch between contradictory visual phenomena (Figure 1), enabling consistent explanation for both discrepant ...
2021-02-10
Tampa, FL (Feb. 10, 2021) - Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), commonly known as angioplasty with a stent, opens clogged arteries and saves lives. Despite its benefit in treating atherosclerosis that causes coronary artery disease, this common minimally-invasive procedure still poses severe complications for some patients.
Angioplasty involves inflating a balloon at the tip of a catheter to compress fatty deposits (plaques) against the artery wall, thereby restoring blood flow to the narrowed or blocked vessels. The image-guided procedure is often combined with the placement of either uncoated stents -- tiny expandable mesh devices- or stents coated with slowly-released antiproliferative ...
2021-02-10
Tsukuba, Japan -- Economists have been using game theory to study decision-making since the 1950s. More recently, the interdisciplinary field of neuroeconomics has gained popularity as scientists try to understand how economic decisions are made in the brain. Researchers led by Professor Masayuki Matsumoto and Assistant Professor Hiroshi Yamada at the University of Tsukuba in Japan studied populations of neurons across the monkey brain reward network to find out where and when expected value is calculated.
The team trained monkeys to perform a lottery task for a reward. The monkeys saw two pie charts on a computer screen. The colors in the charts told the monkeys the size of the reward and the probability of getting it. ...
2021-02-10
Black carbon (BC) is the product of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuel, and biomass. By strongly absorbing solar radiation, BC can heat the atmosphere, affect its stability, and further deteriorate air quality.
The climatic and environmental effects of BC are determined by its loading in the atmosphere. Scientists find that microphysical characteristics of BC, such as particle size and mixing state, can also influence these effects.
The team pointed out that the reduction of the thickly coated BC would further lead to a decline of solar radiation absorption by atmospheric aerosols, besides the decline resulting from the BC loading ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Breastfeeding mothers produce COVID-19 antibodies capable of neutralizing virus