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What this article answers:

What are prebiotics?
What are short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides (scGOS) and long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides (lcFOS)?
Do they have health benefits for infants?
Human milk is a rich fluid that meets an infant's individual nutritional needs while also guiding the infant's growth, development, and physiological processes.2 Human milk serves as an inspiration for infant nutrition solutions for newborns who are unable to obtain adequate mother's milk.2 Infant feeds need to mimic the composition and functionality of human milk by providing oligosaccharides, bacteria, and bacterial metabolites.2 Moreover, nutritional interventions like prebiotics promote the establishment of a beneficial microbiota and have a positive impact on neonatal health.2

Prebiotics are indigestible by humans, but are used as substrates by microorganisms in the gut. The resultant metabolites exert a beneficial effect on the host’s health.1 Human milk contains large quantity of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) which act as prebiotics. They selectively stimulate the growth or activity of specific “good bacteria” and promote the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which have pleiotropic effects both locally (in the digestive tract) and distantly on other tissues.1 However, the commercial production of HMOs (2-fucosyllactose or 2’-FL) began only in 2015.5 Therefore, GOS (derived from lactose), and FOS (derived from inulin) remains the most frequently employed prebiotic combination in clinical trials investigating infant nutrition. Read ahead to know more.