Abstract
Background:
The combination of maternal obesity in early pregnancy and high protein intake in infant formula feeding might predispose to obesity risk in later life.
Methods:
This study assesses the impact of breast- or formula-feeding (differing in protein content by 1.65 or 2.7 g/100 kcal) on the metabolism of term infants from overweight and obese mothers. From birth to 3 mo of age, infants received exclusively either breast- or starter formula-feeding and until 6 mo, exclusively either a formula designed for this study or breast-feeding. From 6 to 12 mo, infants received complementary weaning food. Metabonomics was conducted on the infants’ urine and stool samples collected at the age of 3, 6, and 12 mo.
Results:
Infant formula-feeding resulted in higher protein-derived short-chain fatty acids and amino acids in stools. Urine metabonomics revealed a relationship between bacterial processing of dietary proteins and host protein metabolism stimulated with increasing protein content in the formula. Moreover, formula-fed infants were metabolically different from breast-fed infants, at the level of lipid and energy metabolism (carnitines, ketone bodies, and Krebs cycle).
Conclusion:
Noninvasive urine and stool metabolic monitoring of responses to early nutrition provides relevant readouts to assess nutritional requirements for infants’ growth.
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Acknowledgements
We thank S. Colombo Mottaz and F. Chauffard for clinical trial management, D. Grathwohl and D. Egli for their scientific input and discussion in relation to the infant growth and development, and D. Barron for managerial support at NIHS to S.M.
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Martin, FP., Moco, S., Montoliu, I. et al. Impact of breast-feeding and high- and low-protein formula on the metabolism and growth of infants from overweight and obese mothers. Pediatr Res 75, 535–543 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/pr.2013.250
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pr.2013.250
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