Cord blood leptin and gains in body weight and fat mass during infancy
Carol Ní Chaoimh1, Deirdre M Murray2, Louise C Kenny3
1Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition ResearchSchool of Food and Nutritional Sciences The Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT).
Insights
Higher cord blood leptin levels are linked to slower infant weight gain, primarily due to reduced fat mass accumulation in early life. This finding highlights leptin's role in infant adiposity regulation.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Endocrinology
- Developmental Biology
- Metabolic Health
Background:
- Early-life adiposity influences long-term health outcomes.
- Leptin, a key metabolic regulator, plays a role in energy balance.
- Understanding early predictors of infant growth is crucial for public health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between cord blood leptin concentrations and infant weight and body composition changes.
- To determine if early leptin levels predict infant growth trajectories.
Main Methods:
- Cord blood leptin levels were measured in 334 infants.
- Body composition (fat mass index and fat-free mass index) was assessed using air displacement plethysmography.
- Linear regression models examined associations between cord blood leptin and conditional changes in weight and body composition.
Main Results:
- Higher cord blood leptin positively correlated with fat mass index at birth.
- Elevated cord blood leptin was associated with slower weight gain between birth and 2 months.
- Cord blood leptin showed an inverse association with changes in fat mass index but not fat-free mass index during early infancy.
Conclusions:
- Higher cord blood leptin is associated with slower infant weight gain, driven by reduced adiposity increases.
- These findings suggest leptin influences early infant body composition development.
- Leptin may serve as an early indicator for adiposity trajectories in infancy.
Objectives:
Low early-life leptin concentrations may promote faster weight gain in infancy. We aimed to examine the associations between cord blood leptin concentrations and changes in weight and body composition during infancy.
Design And Methods:
Serum leptin was measured at 15 weeks gestation, in umbilical cord blood collected at delivery and at 2 years in 334 children from the Cork Baseline Birth Cohort Study. Body composition was measured at 2 days and 2 months using air displacement plethysmography. Conditional change in weight standard deviation scores over a number of age intervals in the first 2 years and conditional change in fat mass index (FMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) (kg/(length)m(2)) between birth and 2 months were calculated and associations with cord blood leptin were examined using linear regression.
Results:
At birth, cord blood leptin was positively correlated with FMI (r = 0.48, P < 0.001) and showed a weaker correlation with FFMI (r = 0.12, P = 0.05). After adjustment for confounders, higher cord blood leptin (per ng/mL) was associated with slower conditional weight gain between birth and 2 months (β (95% CI): -0.024 (-0.035, -0.013), P < 0.001) but not over subsequent age intervals. Cord blood leptin was also inversely associated with conditional change in FMI (-0.021 (-0.034, -0.007, P = 0.003) but not FFMI between birth and 2 months.
Conclusions:
These are the first data to show that associations between higher cord blood leptin and slower weight gain during infancy are driven by lower increases in adiposity, at least in early infancy.
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