Abstract
Cysteine is a semi-essential amino acid that has been positively associated with growth in children. However, transgenerational effects remain unclear. The aim of this analysis was to assess whether maternal plasma total cysteine (tCys) concentration is associated with various growth indicators in infants living in peri-urban settings in Bhaktapur, Nepal. We used data from the 561 mothers enrolled in an ongoing randomized controlled trial. We built linear regression models to evaluate the associations between maternal tCys and birth weight, length-for-age Z-scores (LAZ) and weight-for-length Z-scores (WLZ) at birth and six months of age. Maternal tCys was inversely associated with birth weight among boys after adjusting for confounders (p < 0.05). In addition, there was a negative association between maternal tCys and LAZ at birth (p < 0.01). No associations between maternal tCys and the other anthropometric indicators were found significant, although there was a tendency for maternal tCys to be associated positively with WLZ at birth among girls (p < 0.10). This is a first study evaluating transgenerational relation of tCys on growth in infants. Further, larger and more comprehensive studies are needed to determine if and how maternal tCys alters child growth.
Highlights
Malnutrition is a wide-spread health problem leading to profound short- and long-term consequences for child growth and development [1,2,3], as well as for survival [4]
Maternal characteristics were available for 561 enrolled mothers, and birth weight and anthropometric measurements at birth were available for 521 infants
There was an improvement in mean length-for-age Z-scores (LAZ) and weight-for-length Z-scores (WLZ) scores for infants at six months of age relative to assessment done at birth
Summary
Malnutrition is a wide-spread health problem leading to profound short- and long-term consequences for child growth and development [1,2,3], as well as for survival [4]. Nutrients 2020, 12, 2849; doi:10.3390/nu12092849 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients (20–30%) of wasting and stunting is found to originate in utero [7]. These observations reinstated the fact that the nutritional status of a pregnant woman is relevant for her own health and affects her growing fetus/child. There are many risk factors associated with malnutrition [2,8,9,10], a diverse diet, rich in all necessary nutrients, is very important, especially among vulnerable populations such as growing children and pregnant women [11]. High quality protein intake has been shown to promote child growth [12], possibly via enhancing insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) production [13]
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