Fattening up baby may rebound in adulthood-Sydney Morning Herald Australia
By Michael Bradley
March 29 2003
The preoccupation of new parents with ensuring babies put on weight in the
early weeks may be storing up health problems for the children later in
life, British researchers say.
Their study of teenagers born prematurely in the 1980s found those who had
been fed less and grew more slowly as infants were less likely to show a
tendency towards diabetes than their premature and full-term peers who had
been given more food.
The research, which could turn infant feeding practices on their head if it
proves to be valid for all children, compared concentrations of a marker for
insulin resistance in 216 adolescents born prematurely and 61 born at full
term.
The scientists, from the Institute of Child Health, London, knew exactly how
the teenagers had been fed as babies, because all had taken part in an
infant nutrition trial.
They found the low-nutrient children had 20 per cent less of the diabetes
precursor, called 32-33 split proinsulin, in their bloodstream.
More research was necessary to establish whether the results also applied to
full-term infants, wrote the lead researcher, Atul Singhal, in The Lancet
yesterday, but they had important implications.
"Our data lend support to the benefit of relative undernutrition associated
with colostrum and breastfeeding very early in infancy in reducing the risk
of cardiovascular disease," Dr Singhal wrote.
Current practice promoted weight gain in infancy as a way of preventing
future disease, but high-nutrient feeding might actually be harmful, he
wrote.
Previous research had suggested babies' growth in the uterus was the major
influence on later disease risk. But the new finding - the first in humans
to link diet in infancy with disease risk - was good news, Dr Singhal said,
because it was easier to influence children's nutrient intake after birth
than before.
Nick Evans, director of the newborn intensive care unit at Royal Prince
Alfred Hospital, said the results did not warrant any immediate changes to
how premature babies were fed. "Whether it really infers any definite risks,
we don't know. It is true that [diabetes] risk increases with higher levels
of this marker, but what they haven't actually shown is that these children
will actually go on and develop any of these problems, which is the really
important thing.
"What they've done is throw up a thing which suggests more research needs to
be done in the area, but not something which really suggests we should
change what we do."
Meg Kingsley IBCLC
Dubai UAE
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