New Research On Reducing Early Childhood Obesity
In an important step on the road to understanding and preventing childhood obesity, researchers have discovered the nutrients mums receive before and during pregnancy can make a real difference to how much weight their children put on in the first years of life.
The research, led by the University of
Auckland’s Liggins Institute and part of the NiPPeR study with the
University of Southampton, the National University of
Singapore and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences,
involves approximately 500 mothers (and their children) in
three countries - New Zealand, Singapore and the UK.
Half
the mothers in the study received an enriched supplement
including vitamins B2, B6, B12, D, probiotics and
myoinositol, together with standard pregnancy
supplementation. The other half were in a control group and
received standard pregnancy supplementation alone. Neither
the mums nor their medical teams knew which group they were
in.
When researchers checked in on the children at age
two years, they found half as many obese children in the
cohort whose mothers were in the enriched supplement group
(nine percent versus 18 percent), compared to the control
group.
In addition, children of the mums in the enriched
supplement group were almost 25 percent less likely to have
experienced ‘rapid weight gain’ - a condition which
often leads to obesity.
The findings are significant,
says Wayne Cutfield, professor of paediatric endocrinology
at the Liggins Institute, and one of the leaders of the
research.
“In a world of obesity, our data suggests
supplementing mums before and during pregnancy can have
benefits way beyond the pregnancy and for the women
involved; it can impact their baby into childhood and
potentially beyond.”
Professor Keith Godfrey, co-author
and chief investigator of the NiPPeR Trial, from the
University of Southampton agrees.
“Preventing obesity
is arguably the most important thing we can do, because
treating obesity is so much more difficult.”
Rates of
childhood obesity are continuing to rise in many countries,
particularly in less advantaged groups, Godfrey
says.
“The new findings suggest the period before and
during pregnancy may provide a ‘special opportunity’ –
a time when supporting better nutritional status for the
mother could have lasting benefits for her child.”
The
next stage of the research is to try to identify which of
the various nutrients in the supplement are producing the
beneficial impacts in terms of reducing or preventing
unhealthy weight gain, Cutfield says.
The supplement
contained seven additional micronutrients and any of the
seven (or a combination of them) could have impacted the
metabolism and development of the children and the
likelihood of obesity, he says.
“We do not yet know the
precise mechanism, but there’s evidence some of the
micronutrients are associated with body metabolism in
pregnancy. We have started analysing the data and we hope to
be able to drill down into which component or components are
most critical.”
Co-author Associate Professor Shiao Yng
Chan from the National University of Singapore says the
effects of a mother's nutrition during pregnancy might not
show in the baby right away.
“As the child grows, the
things that happened in the baby's body while in the womb
become apparent. These early events, sometimes called
‘foetal programming’, can influence how the child reacts
to an unhealthy lifestyle, like eating lots of fatty foods
and not getting enough exercise.
“This can make some
children more likely to become overweight."
The NiPPeR
study is a collaboration between the Liggins Institute at
the University of Auckland, the University of Southampton,
the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, National
University of Singapore, and the Agency for Science,
Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.
It
involves many different research strands into areas of the
health and behaviour of the mothers and children involved.
The researchers targeted a cross-section of healthy women
representing the general population in the three
countries.
The latest findings, on the impacts on
obesity, were published today in the highly regarded
peer-reviewed medical journal BMC Medicine. Work is
continuing to look at the impacts on the children when they
are between six and eight years of age, Cutfield
says.
“It is exciting to see that treatment in
pregnancy can have a long legacy of benefits into childhood.
We will continue to follow these children to see if this
impact is maintained.”
LEAD
AUTHORS
- Professor Wayne Cutfield, Professor in Paediatric Endocrinology at the University of Auckland – profile here.
- Professor Keith Godfrey MBE, Professor of Epidemiology and Human Development at the University of Southampton – profile here.
- Associate Professor Shiao-Yng Chan, Clinician Scientists at the National University of Singapore – profile here.