Human Milk and Infant Formula Bioactive Components and Offspring Health: Current Evidence, Mechanisms, and Future Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Human milk is widely recognized as the optimal natural food for infants, providing essential nutrients and diverse bioactive components that support growth, development, immune maturation, and long-term health. This Special Issue aims to advance understanding of how human milk components and infant formula influence infant health and development, with a particular focus on evidence linking nutritional interventions to physiological, developmental, and clinically relevant health outcomes. We welcome original research, reviews, and perspectives addressing the biological functions of human milk components, their interactions with the gut microbiota, immune system, and metabolism, and strategies for optimizing infant formula. Studies on formula optimization are particularly encouraged when proposed benefits are supported by experimental or clinical validation, including physiologically relevant in vitro/ex vivo models, animal studies, or human studies. Research focusing solely on component identification, compositional analysis, formulation design, or in vitro characterization without evidence of physiological or health-related effects is beyond the primary scope. By integrating multidisciplinary perspectives, this Special Issue seeks to promote evidence-based nutritional strategies and accelerate the translation of fundamental discoveries into validated approaches and products that improve infant health and development.

Dr. Hua Jiang
Prof. Dr. Yumei Zhang
Dr. Dong Liang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.