Research on Dirty Diapers of Infants Reveals Many Previously Unknown Viruses
Scientists discovered many unknown viruses in baby diapers – (Photo: healthybaby).
According to the Washington Post, a research team examined the feces of 647 healthy one-year-old Danish children who participated in a long-term study on asthma and chronic illnesses.
They found a surprisingly diverse collection of viruses in the children’s dirty diapers, many of which had not been previously identified by science.
Specifically, the team discovered 10,000 virus species from 248 virus families. Out of these 248 families, only 16 were previously known.
The team also noted that the number of viruses in children’s feces is 10 times greater than that of bacteria. 90% of these viruses are bacteriophages that attack bacteria rather than human cells – meaning they help develop immune responses and balance the bacterial population in the gut microbiome. These bacteriophages are not harmful.
Why are there so many viruses in children’s intestines?
Mr. Shiraz Shah, a senior researcher at the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (Denmark) and the lead author of the study, stated: “We lean towards the hypothesis that children’s immune systems have not yet learned to ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’ at just one year old, leading to an extremely rich variety of gut viruses that protect the body against chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes later on.”
