YOUNG RESEARCHERS’ WORKSHOP

I. Broekaert

, E. Larque

1

Division Metabolic Diseases and Nutrition, Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany;

2

Department of Physiology, University of Murcia, Spain

2

Abstract: Research in Europe needs multidisciplinary approaches and young researchers should get the opportunity to become familiar with new perspectives and future research topics. The workshop focused on some particular topics of research:

• new nutrients in infant formulas

• biochemical mechanisms of metabolic programming

• influence of early feeding on childhood obesity.

Key words: Gangliosides, intestinal microflora, appetite, obesity, infant formula, breastfeeding, leptin, adiponectin, sleeping metabolic rate, fat mass, doubly labelled water, uncoupling protein, birth weight, placental lipid genes, microarray, cholesterol biosynthesis, metabolic imprinting.

1.

INTRODUCTION

This workshop was organized as a forum for young researchers.

Research in Europe needs multidisciplinary approaches and young researchers should get the opportunity to become familiar with new perspectives and future research topics. The aim of this session was to convene new talented young researchers in the field of nutrition in pregnancy and childhood and to discuss recent work and projects for the future. A platform for young researchers in medicine, pharmacy, nutrition or any other biomedical research to present their work and to open it for discussion was provided. This workshop gave a good opportunity to receive valuable feed-back information, to get in contact with other researchers and to become familiar with other approaches and future research topics. Therefore, six abstracts on experimental research and clinical studies were selected. The background of the research area

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was presented, current research problems and areas of interest were highlighted and time was made available for discussion. The audience, especially young researchers who were encouraged to participate in the session, was motivated to actively participate and to share information with other worldwide scientists. They were interested or conducted research in the field of perinatal nutrition and functioned as a channel of influence in policy, teaching, and clinical work. The workshop focused on some particular topics of research:

• new nutrients in infant formulas

• biochemical mechanisms of metabolic programming

• influence of early feeding on childhood obesity

All papers can be found in abstract form within the poster section of this book..

2. ENRIQUE VÁZQUEZ

Enrique Vázquez from the Abbott Laboratories in Granada, Spain, gave a presentation on ‘Dietary gangliosides: beneficial effects for the neonate and potential mechanism of action’. Questions that arose from his presentation were:

• Are gangliosides as large molecules resistant to gastric fluid?

Answer: some of them could be digested in the stomach but the major part seems to pass intact to the intestine, showing positive effects on gut immunity and intestinal microflora.

• What was the concentrations of the gangliosides used in this work?

Answer: the concentration of gangliosides in the diet of the

mice was 47 mg/kg, which represents the mean amount of

gangliosides in maternal milk adapted to the percentage of

solids in the milk of the mice.

3. DAREK GRUSZFELD

The next speaker was Darek Gruszfeld from Warsaw, Poland. As one of the co-workers in the European Childhood Obesity Project, which follows up children in Poland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Germany with regard to overweight, a presentation on interesting preliminary results on the ‘Appetite control in breastfed and milk formula fed infants’ was given. Questions and remarks arising from his presentation were:

• Has appetite been measured directly?

Answer: No, it was measured indirectly by leptin concentration.

• How can you correct for higher leptin concentrations due to increased fat mass in the formula fed infants?

Answer: up to now, corrections for higher fat mass has not been performed as the study has not been unblinded yet.

• Is increased fat mass caused by higher protein content of the formula milk or due to increased appetite?

Answer: Since direct measurements of appetite have not been measured, it is difficult to estimate the cause for higher fat mass before ‘unblinding’ of the study.

• Children at the age of 6 months already get complementary foods. Was this taken into account?

Answer: yes, food frequency protocols are performed by the mother on 3 days a month monthly, thus also at the time point of blood sampling.

The findings will contribute to the hormonal understanding of metabolic imprinting by a protein-rich diet. So, the final results after

‘unblinding’ of the formula milk groups will be very promising.

4. HINKE HAISMA

The next speaker was Hinke Haisma from Groningen, The Netherlands. She cooperated with researchers from London, Cambridge and Brazil. Dr. Haisma reported on the ‘Effect of complementary feeding with cows’ milk on sleeping metabolic rate in breast-fed infants’.

Questions she was asked were:

• Can you please explain the significant differences on sleeping metabolic rate and energy expenditure between cow’s milk fed and breast fed infants?

Dr. Haisma showed us with the help of a table which significant differences could be detected.

• Further remarks were made that the breast and cow’s milk fed babies composed a very heterogeneous group.

Furthermore, the social inequity in Pelotas, Brazil, was quite remarkable.

5. JENNIE LITTEN

Another speaker was Jennie Litten from Nottingham, UK, who presented the research mainly conducted by Allison Mostyn from Wye, UK on ‘The influence of birth weight on adipose tissue, skeletal muscle and lung uncoupling protein 2 and 3 expression in neonatal pigs’. Questions arising from her presentation were:

• Could you please delineate the mechanism for the different UCP expression in lung, fat and muscle tissue?

Answer: The different UCP expression could be due to different immunological or nutritional parameters in the lung, but specific immunological markers were not measured.

6. TATJANA RADAELLI

The presentations continued with Tatjana Radaelli from Milan, Italy, who co-operated with researchers from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She presented her work on ‘Excess fetal adiposity is associated with programming of placental lipid genes’. Questions arising from her presentation were:

• Did some of the mothers receive insulin due to gestational diabetes and how could insulin influence the different expression?

Answer: three from the six placentas were from mothers

receiving insulin during pregnancy. An effect of insulin

cannot be excluded.

• The expression of genes related to glucose metabolism is far less accented than the expression of fatty acid metabolism genes. This could be explained by the constitutive glucose transfer over the placenta.

7. THÉA DEMMERS

Our last speaker was Théa Demmers from McGill University in Ste.

Anne de Bellevue, Canada, and she and her colleagues collaborated with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, OH, USA. She reported on the “Effect of early cholesterol intake on cholesterol biosynthesis and plasma lipids”. Questions arising from her talk were:

• How far is cholesterol biosynthesis responsive of diet?

Answer: cholesterol biosynthesis is responsive to diet, but the response differs in different stages of life, it is highly responsive to infant dietary cholesterol intake and is down- regulated by a higher than usual cholesterol intake in adulthood but this response in adulthood is varied across individuals.

• Was cholesterol measured in mothers?

Answer: plasma cholesterol of the mothers has not been taken into account, but as it might be of interest it will be compared with the children’s plasma cholesterol and the fractional synthesis of cholesterol in the future.

• Will effects later in life be measured?

Answer: there is a plan to follow-up the children in order to detect clinical effects.

8. CONCLUSIONS

The speakers, as well as the presenters and all the participants of this

session, were thanked for their contribution. The participants had the

opportunity to learn new interesting issues relating to obesity, fetal

programming and effects of new nutrients for new supplemented infant

formulas. The presenters gave the impression that their research was at a m m

very high standard. They could learn that presenting their own results

and opening them up for discussion is a very important means of communication to even improve their research. They were motivated to keep up the good work and to profit from any discussion at the workshop and at the conference.

In fact, three of the presenters were elected as giving the best

abstracts of the Workshop (1

: Tatjana Radaelli, 2

: Hinke Haisma, 3

:

Théa Demmers).