Reno Reporter

A major cause of malnutrition among children globally is diarrheal infections that hinder their mental and physical progression.

Children are especially prone to such infections, and something must be done to secure their future, because they are the future of their country. They are a country’s future leaders, innovators and workers. If one suffers, they both suffer.

University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), Assistant Professor Steven Frese of the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources, is spearheading efforts to alleviate the suffering; a recent UNR news release said.

“The problem of severe malnutrition and stunting is widespread and devastating,” Frese said in the release. “In the U.S., we have the luxury of never having faced these challenges on such a large scale. But for a country to develop, it has to grow and develop an innovative workforce. If a large portion of the population has complications from stunting, it can’t.”

Frese and a cohort of scientists published an article in Science Translational Medicine that revealed an exact probiotic strain helps the development of severely malnourished Bangladeshi children, the release said.

“There are many frontiers in modern medicine where we know that there is an important problem and there are new tools being developed to understand the underlying biology, but we still don’t have all the answers,” Dr. Mark Riddle of UNR’s School of Medicine said.

Frese noted that while the issue isn’t frequently seen in developed countries like America, severe malnutrition can be critical in other parts of the world.

“The problem of severe malnutrition and stunting is widespread and devastating,” he said in the release. “The positive outlook on stunting is that we have an idea of how to solve it. These solutions are challenging to develop, but the early work is promising. We’ll get there, to a fast, cheap and easy solution for people.”