A new study suggests that bacteria present in meconium, an infant’s first stool, may predict the likelihood that an infant will later develop obesity.
- The presence of certain bacteria in the meconium, the first stool of the newborn, is a marker of future obesity.
A public health challenge for the years to come, childhood obesity affected more than 41 million children worldwide in 2016. According to the world health organization (WHO), overweight and obese children risk remaining so as adults. They are also more likely to contract non-communicable but chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, at an early age.
Exposure to antibiotics during early childhood and their use by the mother during her pregnancy have already been highlighted by various studies as factors favoring obesity in children. According to a new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Oulu (Finland), and published in the journal Pediatric Obesityit is possible to predict a child’s likelihood of developing future obesity by analyzing the microbiome of their first stool, called meconium.
A different microbiome according to the risk of obesity
To reach this conclusion, the researchers recruited 218 newborns, including 212 whose meconium was collected at the maternity ward. Families also completed a questionnaire on maternal medical history, including information on gestational diabetes, or the use of antibiotics during pregnancy.
The children were then followed up regularly, at one year, two years and three years, with new questionnaires concerning their diet and their BMI filled out by their parents and collection of stool samples.
The data collected was then analyzed and cross-referenced by the researchers using algorithms. It turned out that the meconium microbiome in children with later overweight was different from that of children with normal weight, with a higher presence of phylum Bacteroidetes (29% versus 15%), and a lower proportion of Proteobacteria phylum.
According to the study authors, these results therefore suggest that the composition of the meconium microbiome may reflect maternal influence on the child,”because maternal prenatal factors such as antimicrobial exposure during pregnancy and maternal obesity are known to alter the composition of the newborn’s microbiome”. “Maternal obesity is associated with an increased risk of children having high birth weight and developing overweight or obesity and metabolic syndrome.” However, they point out,it is still unclear whether the current findings reflect intrauterine colonization or postnatal colonization.”
“The concept of fetal microbiome is controversial and the process of colonization after birth is better understood than eventual fetal colonization; however, many prenatal factors affect the microbial composition of the baby’s first stool, such as the mother’s use of antibiotics during pregnancy and the biodiversity of the home environment during pregnancyexplains the lead author of the study Katja Korpela. It is very interesting that the microbiome formed before birth is possibly linked to the subsequent weight status of the child”she concludes.
For the researchers, these results show the need to better consider maternal and prenatal factors when examining the pathogenesis of pediatric obesity.
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