BATON ROUGE (La. Babies as young as two weeks are taken to the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in strollers or car-seat carriers. Some babies cry, others wiggle and some just sleep the entire time.
Their job is simple: they sit down and scientists measure their metabolism and body fat.
Leanne Redman directs the Pennington maternal and infant research laboratory at Louisiana State University. “We believe that by studying babies we can really get at the biology of obesity,” she said. This lab is the only one in the world that can study newborn metabolism. This is how their tiny bodies use energy or calories.
Redman believes that the lab can uncover the biological causes of obesity by studying metabolism in the first weeks after birth. This is long before outside factors such as diet and food choices influence a person’s weight. The diets of newborns do not include any exercise and are primarily breastmilk or formula.
She said that the theory is that a person’s metabolic fingerprint is predetermined for their entire life. The ability to decode that fingerprint could lead to personalized interventions for obese children.
These ramifications have a major impact on the future health and well-being of Americans. Obesity can lead to a host of health problems including stroke, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
The obesity epidemic in America continues to grow despite the millions of dollars that are spent every year on prevention, treatment and research. It affects almost 20 percent of children and teens in the United States, and more than 40% of adults. This number is expected to grow to 50% by 2030.
“We’ve been living in a silent pandemic for the past few years,” Dr. Andres Acosta said, a gastroenterologist and bariatrician at the Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minnesota. It’s killing our generation.
Obesity and its treatment are complex science. There are many factors that contribute to obesity, including diet and exercise.
“Weight is the result of an energy balance. Redman stated that it’s a simple physics equation. Calories in and calories out. It’s very difficult to understand what drives both those factors, calories in and calories away. What drives biology and what drives behavior?
Because the Pennington lab is located in Louisiana, it is uniquely placed to study obesity. According to obesity statistics, the state is consistently among the most obese in the country. According to data from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 22.2 percent of all children aged 10-17 are obese.
Redman stated that Louisiana is a living laboratory to the rest of the globe. We have diversity in income. We are diverse in our race. We are diverse in our ethnicity and in our health conditions.”
Dr. Ryan Farrell is a pediatric endocrinologist at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospitals in Cleveland. He said that a better understanding of the factors that drive obesity in childhood and what factors make a child more at risk is key to prevention.
He said, “Getting a sense early on of children with lower resting energy expenditures and getting a sense as to whether that has long-term health implications as they get older could potentially mean intervening earlier and making lifestyle changes well before rapid weight gain.”
The earlier doctors can intervene, better.
Dr. Evan Nadler, director at Children’s National Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Weight Loss Surgery Program, said that “We see all these children way too late.” It’s harder after age 5 says Nadler.
This is one reason the Pennington Lab is so focused on newborns.
The National Institutes of Health funded study sees babies as young as two weeks old being brought to the laboratory for their first two measurements, body fat percentage and metabolism.
Babies are placed in a Pea Pod, an enclosed oval-shaped chamber that calculates body fat. The machine compares the baby’s body weight to determine how much air the baby uses in the pod. The whole process takes about 90 seconds.
Redman stated that the researchers will compare each baby’s body fat to two years later. What might be the most important thing about a newborn?
Pennington’s PeaPod has measured the body fat of hundreds of babies. The team also has data on around 7,000 babies, which is in addition to other global users.
Pennington is the center of research in newborn metabolism that scientists around the world are seeking. The only lab in the world that uses an infant metabolic chamber.
The infant chamber mimics the standard for measuring metabolism in adults. These metabolic chambers are approximately the same size as a small hotel room. Scientists can calculate how many calories adults have burned in 24 hours by having them stay in the same room.
Redman stated that they have been working hard to perfect their protocols so that we can capture the entire cycle while the baby’s in the metabolic chamber. This takes about two hours in baby time.
The infant chamber is made of plexiglass and has a small mattress. It’s decorated with smiling elephants or lions. Pennington lab members and parents can enter the infant chamber to comfort the baby when needed. They usually just sleep.
The chamber’s oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are precisely measured to determine a baby’s metabolism. The concentration of these gases in the chamber when the baby enters it is known. Each exhalation contains more carbon than oxygen. Researchers can calculate how many calories babies are burning by comparing the amount of oxygen they inhale with the carbon dioxide they exhale. The body will produce more carbon dioxide if it is burning calories harder.
Another way to calculate whether energy is more fats or carbs is to use another calculation. This could help to understand how someone is predisposed to burn fuel in a particular way. It can also be used to tailor nutrition and fitness plans for children at high risk of becoming obese.
Redman’s research team plans to continue studying these babies for many years. However, it is still very much in its infancy. The metabolic chamber has already been used to study 40 babies, but the first results will not be available until next year. The team hopes that the data will reveal trends and benchmarks that could help determine the risk of obesity. Redman stated that “when we combine all of the data together, with thousands upon thousands of babies now measured at this time,” it will be possible to start collecting more metrics to understand obesity.
Are newborns really too young for researchers to discover the causes of obesity? Redman admits that obesity risks start long before birth
She stated that a child is predisposed to obesity. The child is at high risk of becoming obese if his or her parents, particularly the mother, are overweight.
Children’s National’s Nadler began to examine the umbilical cord blood from newborns in order to determine factors that might influence a child’s weight. He says that fat cells can be fragmented and carry molecules from the mother to the fetus, which can alter metabolic functions in the body. The future treatments for obesity prevention before it starts in childhood could involve changing the molecules in our bodies starting at birth. Nadler stated that childhood obesity is being treated at its earliest stage of development.
Redman is also working to learn more about the causes of obesity, even before it occurs. We can help the person to have a better chance of avoiding chronic diseases and weight gain by improving the health of their embryos during this crucial time.
