( Children that are breast fed are able t...)Vulnerability to Ear Infections Lessened by Breast Feeding,Health

Children that are breast fed are able to overcome certain ear infections that occur due to genetic abnormalities.// This was discovered by a group of researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Chronic, recurrent ear infections occur in as many as 19 % children. Ear infections can lead to learning disorders as it interferes with the development of language. Although it was known that ear infections may be caused due to abnormal genes, scientists had not been able to pinpoint which defective genes caused this abnormality. These genes seemed to have a strange complex relationship with environmental factors like smoking and breastfeeding and also with specific infectious agents.

The UTMB study, published in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics, examined genetic samples taken from 505 children in Texas and Kentucky, about 60 percent of whom were classified as "otitis media susceptible" because they had suffered an ear infection before the age of 6 months; had undergone three or more episodes of acute otitis media within a six-month period; had four or more episodes within a 12-month period; or had six or more episodes by age 6. Children who had required drainage tubes to assuage recurrent or persistent ear infections were also placed in the "susceptible" category.

"We know that the tendency to get this infection runs in families, and so we decided to look for small variations — what we call ‘single-nucleotide polymorphisms,' or SNPs — in three important genes that produce inflammatory signaling molecules for the immune system," said lead author Janak A. Patel, a professor in the infectious disease division of UTMB's Department of Pediatrics. "Two of them stood out on their own as signals of increased risk."

The two identified genes generate the immune proteins known as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin 6 (IL-6). SNPs in each individual gene were enough, the researchers found, t
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