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The World Health Organization reported that 52 million children underfive years of age are wasted (low weight for height), while 17 million are severely wasted and 155 million are stunted (low height for age).
Many countries will not be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for malnutrition, according to icddr,b.
As a result their brains do not develop properly and they remain susceptible to diseases for many years after. This is due to their gut microbes which remain in an immature state.
Scientists from icddr,b and Washington University studied the main types of bacteria present in the healthy guts of children. They also tested which sets of foods boost these important bacterial communities in animal models.
In a recently concluded trial involving 68 malnourished children aged 12-18 months living in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh, the research team tested out different diets.
They investigated the impact of diets on the gut microbiota, and how members of microbiota that are beneficial are affected positively.
Another key outcome of this study was to see the effect of diets on proteins produced in the body of the children.
Consequently, two articles were published in Science in July 2019. The findings suggest fostering the right microbes with specific nutritional supplements including green bananas, chickpeas, soybean and peanut flour could help the gut flora recover in these children.
Larger scale clinical trials with diets prepared with these foods are now underway at the icddr,b.
DrTahmeed Ahmed, Senior Director, Nutrition and Clinical Services at icddr,b and Prof Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University have been leading this research since 2014.
Prof Gordon said the aim has been "to target microbes to heal. Microbes don't see bananas or peanuts - they just see a blend of nutrients they can use and share.”
“It wasn't yet completely clear why these foods worked best but a much larger trial was now being carried out to see if the diet had long-term effects on children's weight and height gain,” he added.
DrTahmeed Ahmed said it appears the traditional nutrition interventions practiced in the developing countries have to be boosted with the diets developed based upon the new knowledge of the role of the gut microbiota to combat malnutrition among children and to prevent all the deadly complications.
“If the large trials support our findings this will certainly be an excellent discovery and will strongly help addressing undernutrition in children in the developing countries,” he added.