| Summary: | Functional nutrients like synbiotics or milk-fat globule membrane (MFGM) affect positively host immunity, modifying intestinal microbioma and reducing early childhood infections. We compared effects of an experimental enriched-infant formula with long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, MFGM, synbiotics, sialic acid, nucleotides and gangliosides to a standard infant formula and breastfeeding regarding infections incidence and evolution in infants until 18 months of age. 170 healthy infants were enrolled in a RCT to receive either a bioactive functional nutrients enriched infant formula (EF, n = 85) or a standard formula (SF, n = 85). 50 breastfed (BF) infants were also enrolled. At age 12 months, EF group compared to SF and BF groups showed a lower incidence of infectious episodes. Moreover, they also presented less incidence of respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal infections than SF infants, reducing risk by 30.2% and 32.5%, respectively. Infants fed with an EF seem to have reduced incidence of certain infections at 12 months of age.
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