Maternal diet and genetics shape the human milk metabolome

Maternal diet explains the largest share of variation in the human milk metabolome, with 323 metabolites significantly correlated to dietary features across 349 one-month postpartum samples.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear which maternal influences—diet, genetics, or other factors—most shape milk metabolites that support infant nutrition, immune development, and microbial colonization.
• What they did: The study profiled 458 milk metabolites in 349 one-month postpartum milk samples and integrated metabolomics with maternal diet, clinical data, transcriptomics, and genomics, including machine learning and genome-wide association analyses.
• The result: Diet broadly predicted milk metabolite composition, while genetics contributed via nine significant metabolite quantitative trait loci and biologically plausible gene–metabolite pairs, enabling a framework linking exposures and mammary gland biology.

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