It is one of the few foods that nearly everyone on the planet has consumed at some point. It's linked to a host of health benefits, from reducing the risk of asthma and Type 1 diabetes to fighting off infections.
Yet despite the outsized role it plays in sustaining our species, this essential substance — human milk — has been the subject of curiously little research, especially compared to other aspects of diet and reproduction.
Thursday, UC San Diego formally inaugurates the Human Milk Institute, the first academic institution in the U.S. devoted to a crucial element of human nutrition that science is, in many ways, only beginning to understand.
