ESPE Abstracts

Background: Low serum bilirubin and high serum triglycerides are independently associated with higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome. Both bilirubin and triglycerides can regulate insulin secretion and glucose uptake. This is a first longitudinal study in healthy children to associate bilirubin and the bilirubin/triglycerides ratio with metabolic markers.Objectives: Analyze independent associations between bilirub...

Background: Epigenetic alterations due to maternal obesity may contribute to an increased metabolic risk in the offspring. IRS1 has a critical role in insulin signalling and its methylation has been previously associated with body fat distribution and glucose metabolism in human adipose tissue. The relationship between IRS1 methylation in birth tissues and obesity parameters in the offspring is unknown.Objective: To iden...

Introduction: Maternal caloric restriction during gestation leads to offspring’s metabolic programming through epigenetic changes, which increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in adulthood.Objectives: To study in a swine animal model: i) DNA methylation changes associated with caloric restriction during gestation in the adipose tissue of the offspring; and ii) the reversibility of these changes by metformin treatment.<p class="a...

Background: Early catch-up growth, between birth and age two years, in infants born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) is a risk factor for the development of cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood. The basis and mechanisms underpinning catch-up growth in SGA newborns are unknown.Objectives: We aimed to investigate the catch-up predictive ability of cord blood miRNAs in SGA infants.Methods: MicroRNA PCR Human Panels were used to study ...

Background: The placenta plays a key role in regulating fatty acid (FA) transport from maternal to fetal circulation. An unfavourable FA profile in the placenta, reflecting an inadequate nutritional status during pregnancy, may cause changes in placental DNA methylation and negatively affect fetal growth and metabolic health of the offspring.Objectives: We aimed to study the association of an unfavourable placental FA profile with placental DNA methylati...

Introduction: Both the innate and adaptive immune responses are deregulated in individuals with obesity and are a key driver of its associated metabolic alterations. Although the anti-inflammatory growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) is a candidate protein against obesity, its mechanisms regulating the immune responses are not fully understood.Methods: We examined whether serum GDF-15 was related to serum levels of ...

Introduction: It is known that excessive gestational weight gain can cause an adverse intrauterine environment and increase the risk of cardio-metabolic diseases in the offspring. Epigenetics could be one of the mechanisms involved in this regulation.Objective: We aimed to study the DNA methylation profile of umbilical cord tissue that is associated with gestational weight gain (GWG), and its relationship with cardio-met...

Background and Aims: Gestational obesity can cause metabolic programming in the offspring. Epigenetic modifications of DNA have been suggested as potential mechanisms underlying this programming. FRAT-1 is a gene involved in the WNT signaling pathway, which is an important regulator of adipose tissue development. The objective of this work was to study the methylation status of FRAT-1 in placentas of women with either normal weight or gestati...

Background and Aims: Long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) are essential nutrients for the development of the fetus and are supplied by the mother through the placenta. Omega-6 arachidonic acid (AA) and both omega-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docoshexaenoic acid (DHA) stand out for their functional roles. Recent studies show that the concentrations of these fatty acids in maternal blood and umbilical cord are associated with adiposity in the of...

Introduction: Thyroid hormones regulate body composition and metabolism, and are among the key drivers of body growth and maturation. In children, associations of cardio-metabolic measures with the circulating prohormone thyroxine (T4) have been extensively studied, but not with active triiodothyronine (T3). In apparently healthy children, we studied whether circulating free T3 (fT3) [and its ratio with free T4 (fT3/fT4)] associates with cardio-metabolic measu...