ESPE Abstracts

Background: Obesity is a worldwide epidemic affecting adults and children. Social changes throughout history have contributed to modifications in nutrition and physical activity levels. These changes in lifestyle affected health, increasing the number of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. Obese children already have a low grade systemic inflammation as well as markers of increased cardiovascular risk. The endothelial function is an important and early marker of atheroscler...

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...

Background: The human microbiota has emerged as an unexpected modulator of the immune system. The placenta, long thought to be sterile, harbors a unique microbiome and variations in their composition could be related to prevent pregnancy disorders.Objective and hypotheses: To profile the placental microbiota (microorganisms) and microbiome (collection of microbial genomes in an environment) in women with gestational diabetes (GDM) and study their relatio...

Background: The inheritable component of familial Papillary Thyroid Cancer (fPTC) was recently attributed to monogenic defects in a reduced number of genes including DICER1. DICER1 codes for a ribonuclease of the RNaseIII family essential for the biogenesis of microRNAs.Objective and hypotheses: We aimed to identify germline and/or somatic mutations in DICER1 in a familial pedigree with PTC, multinodular goiter (MNG) and other ...

Background: Imprinted genes are known to regulate fetal growth and a ‘parental conflict’ model predicts that paternally and maternally expressed imprinted genes promote and inhibit fetal growth, respectively. GNAS is a complex imprinted locus with multiple oppositely imprinted gene products. Maternal, but not paternal, G(s)alpha mutations lead to obesity in pseudohypoparathyroidism type IA (PHPIA). However, the disorder rarely causes severe obesity in infancy as pred...

Background: The ECOS observational study in Spain (NCT01376921) aims to evaluate adherence to r-hGH therapy prescribed via the easypod™ electromechanical auto-injector device and to analyse factors that may influence adherence in paediatric patients. Easypod™ administers pre-set doses of Saizen® r-hGH and stores accurate records of each dose and injection taken, which can then be shared with the HCP for evaluation of the patient’s adherence.<...

Background: Increased uric acid is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in obese adults and adolescents. The relationship between uric acid and atherosclerotic risk early in life is unknown.Objective and hypotheses: We investigated whether uric acid relates to carotid intima–media thickness (cIMT), a marker of preclinical atherosclerosis, in a rather large sample of school-age children and investigated the interaction of obesity sta...

Background: In rodents, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), an endocrine member of the FGF family, is mainly produced in the liver and promotes glucose oxidation in several tissues; the circulating concentrations of FGF21 rise shortly after birth. In the human, the ontogeny of circulating FGF21 is essentially unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To assess whether there is also a neonatal surge of circulating FGF21 concen...

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...