Body Composition and Cardiometabolic Risk Markers in Children of Women who Took Part in a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Preconceptional Nutritional Intervention in Mumbai, India.

Background: Maternal nutrition influences fetal development and may permanently alter ("program") offspring body composition and metabolism, thereby influencing later risk of diabetes and cardiovascular (cardiometabolic) disease. The prevalence of cardiometabolic disease is rising rapidly in India.

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that supplementing low-income Indian women with micronutrient-rich foods preconceptionally and during pregnancy has a beneficial impact on the children's body composition and cardiometabolic risk marker profiles.

Gains in body mass and body water in pregnancy and relationships to birth weight of offspring in rural and urban Pune, India.

Maternal size, weight gain in pregnancy, fetal gender, environment and gestational age are known determinants of birth weight. It is not clear which component of maternal weight or gained weight during pregnancy influences birth weight. We evaluated the association of maternal total body water measured by the deuterium dilution technique (TBW-DO) at 17 and 34 weeks of gestation with birth weight.

Circulating microRNAs from early childhood and adolescence are associated with pre-diabetes at 18 years of age in women from the PMNS cohort.

With type 2 diabetes presenting at younger ages, there is a growing need to identify biomarkers of future glucose intolerance. A high (20%) prevalence of glucose intolerance at 18 years was seen in women from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS) birth cohort. We investigated the potential of circulating microRNAs in risk stratification for future pre-diabetes in these women.

Body Composition and Cardiometabolic Risk Markers in Children of Women who Took Part in a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Preconceptional Nutritional Intervention in Mumbai, India.

Background: Maternal nutrition influences fetal development and may permanently alter ("program") offspring body composition and metabolism, thereby influencing later risk of diabetes and cardiovascular (cardiometabolic) disease. The prevalence of cardiometabolic disease is rising rapidly in India.

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that supplementing low-income Indian women with micronutrient-rich foods preconceptionally and during pregnancy has a beneficial impact on the children's body composition and cardiometabolic risk marker profiles.

Poor In Utero Growth, and Reduced β-Cell Compensation and High Fasting Glucose From Childhood, Are Harbingers of Glucose Intolerance in Young Indians.

Objective: India is a double world capital of early-life undernutrition and type 2 diabetes. We aimed to characterize life course growth and metabolic trajectories in those developing glucose intolerance as young adults in the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS).

Research Design And Methods: PMNS is a community-based intergenerational birth cohort established in 1993, with serial information on parents and children through pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence.

Transient systemic inflammation in adult male mice results in underweight progeny.

Problem: While the testes represent an immune-privileged organ, there is evidence that systemic inflammation is accompanied by local inflammatory responses. We therefore examined whether transient systemic inflammation caused any inflammatory and functional consequences in murine testes.

Method Of Study: Using a single systemic administration of Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists [lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or peptidoglycan (PG) or polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (polyIC)] in young adult male mice, we assessed testicular immune-inflammatory landscape and reproductive functionality.

Birth weight, childhood and adolescent growth and diabetes risk factors in 21-year-old Asian Indians: the Pune Children's Study.

Our objective was to investigate associations of body size (birth weight and body mass index (BMI)) and growth in height, body fat (adiposity) and lean mass during childhood and adolescence, with risk markers for diabetes in young South Asian adults. We studied 357 men and women aged 21 years from the Pune Children's Study birth cohort. Exposures were 1) birth weight, 21-year BMI, both of these mutually adjusted, and their interaction, and 2) uncorrelated conditional measures of growth in height and proxies for gain in adiposity and lean mass from birth to 8 years (childhood) and 8 to 21 years (adolescence) constructed from birth weight, and weight, height, and skinfolds at 8 and 21 years.

Maternal B12, Folate and Homocysteine Concentrations and Offspring Cortisol and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress.

Context: Imbalances in maternal 1-carbon nutrients (vitamin B12, folate) have been shown to be associated with higher offspring cardiometabolic risk markers in India.

Objective: We examined the hypothesis that low plasma vitamin B12 (B12) and high folate and homocysteine concentrations in the mother are associated with higher hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (cortisol) and cardiovascular responses during the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C) in an Indian birth cohort.

Methods: Adolescents (n = 264; mean age: 13.

A physiological dose of oral vitamin B-12 improves hematological, biochemical-metabolic indices and peripheral nerve function in B-12 deficient Indian adolescent women.

Background: Vitamin B-12 deficiency is often considered synonymous with pernicious anemia, a rare condition in which severe malabsorption of the vitamin requires high-dose parenteral treatment. In developing countries such as India, inadequate dietary intake of B-12 due to socio-cultural factors leads to widely prevalent asymptomatic low B-12 status. In this scenario, lower doses of oral B-12 may be effective, safer and more affordable.

Evaluation of tracer labelled methionine load test in vitamin B-12 deficient adolescent women.

Background: Methionine loading test (MLT) has been used primarily to identify defects in transsulfuration of homocysteine in cystathionine beta synthase deficiency. It may not be as useful to evaluate remethylation pathway, in vitamin B-12 and folate deficiencies.

Objective: We used tracer isotope labelled MLT to interrogate transsulfuration and remethylation independently in vitamin B-12 deficiency.

IGF-I and IGFBP-3 concentrations at 2 years: associations with anthropometry and milk consumption in an Indian cohort.

Background/objectives: To ascertain associations between plasma insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3) and their molar ratio at 2 y with neonatal size, infant growth, body composition at 2 y, and feeding practices in an Indian cohort.

Subjects/methods: A cohort of 209 newborns, with 122 followed at 2 y. Anthropometry was conducted at birth and 2 y.

Lower Circulating B12 Is Associated with Higher Obesity and Insulin Resistance during Pregnancy in a Non-Diabetic White British Population.

Objective: Vitamin B12 and folate are critical micronutrients needed to support the increased metabolic demands of pregnancy. Recent studies from India have suggested that low vitamin B12 and folate concentrations in pregnancy are associated with increased obesity; however differences in diet, antenatal vitamin supplementation, and socioeconomic status may limit the generalisability of these findings. We aimed to explore the cross-sectional relationship of circulating serum vitamin B12 and folate at 28 weeks' gestation with maternal adiposity and related biochemical markers in a white non diabetic UK obstetric cohort.

Multigenerational Undernutrition Increases Susceptibility to Obesity and Diabetes that Is Not Reversed after Dietary Recuperation.

People in developing countries have faced multigenerational undernutrition and are currently undergoing major lifestyle changes, contributing to an epidemic of metabolic diseases, though the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Using a Wistar rat model of undernutrition over 50 generations, we show that Undernourished rats exhibit low birth-weight, high visceral adiposity (DXA/MRI), and insulin resistance (hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps), compared to age-/gender-matched control rats. Undernourished rats also have higher circulating insulin, homocysteine, endotoxin and leptin levels, lower adiponectin, vitamin B12 and folate levels, and an 8-fold increased susceptibility to Streptozotocin-induced diabetes compared to control rats.

Higher glucose, insulin and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in childhood predict adverse cardiovascular risk in early adulthood: the Pune Children's Study.

Aims/hypothesis: The Pune Children's Study aimed to test whether glucose and insulin measurements in childhood predict cardiovascular risk factors in young adulthood.

Methods: We followed up 357 participants (75% follow-up) at 21 years of age who had undergone detailed measurements at 8 years of age (glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR and other indices). Oral glucose tolerance, anthropometry, plasma lipids, BP, carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and arterial pulse wave velocity (PWV) were measured at 21 years.

Maternal homocysteine in pregnancy and offspring birthweight: epidemiological associations and Mendelian randomization analysis.

Background: Disturbed one-carbon (1-C) metabolism in the mother is associated with poor fetal growth but causality of this relationship has not been established.

Methods: We studied the association between maternal total homocysteine and offspring birthweight in the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS, Pune, India) and Parthenon Cohort Study (Mysore, India). We tested for evidence of causality within a Mendelian randomization framework, using a methylenetetrahydrofolatereductase (MTHFR) gene variant rs1801133 (earlier known as 677C→T) by instrumental variable and triangulation analysis, separately and using meta-analysis.

Maternal lipids are as important as glucose for fetal growth: findings from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study.

Objective: To study the relationship between maternal circulating fuels and neonatal size and compare the relative effects of glucose and lipids.

Research Design And Methods: The Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (1993-1996) investigated the influence of maternal nutrition on fetal growth. We measured maternal body size and glucose and lipid concentrations during pregnancy and examined their relationship with birth size in full-term babies using correlation and regression techniques.

Iodine status during pregnancy in India and related neonatal and infant outcomes.

Objective: To document iodine status in Indian pregnancies, associations with maternal diet and demographics, and offspring developmental measures.

Design: Longitudinal study following mothers through pregnancy and offspring up to 24 months.

Setting: Rural health-care centre (Vadu) and urban antenatal clinic (Pune) in the Maharashtra region of India.

Spuriously high prevalence of prediabetes diagnosed by HbA(1c) in young indians partly explained by hematological factors and iron deficiency anemia.

Objective: To examine the influence of glycemic and nonglycemic parameters on HbA(1c) concentrations in young adults, the majority of whom had normal glucose tolerance.

Research Design And Methods: We compared the diagnosis of normal glucose tolerance, prediabetes, and diabetes between a standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; World Health Organization 2006 criteria) and HbA(1c) concentrations (American Diabetes Association [ADA] 2009 criteria) in 116 young adults (average age 21.6 years) from the Pune Children's Study.

Conventional and novel cardiovascular risk factors and markers of vascular damage in rural and urban Indian men.

Background: India is undergoing rapid epidemiological and nutritional transition largely as a consequence of rapid urbanisation. We investigated conventional and novel cardiovascular risk factors in rural and urban Indian men and studied their association with markers of vascular damage.

Methods: We randomly selected and studied 149 rural, 142 urban slum residents and 150 urban middle class middle aged Indian men.

Increases in plasma holotranscobalamin can be used to assess vitamin B-12 absorption in individuals with low plasma vitamin B-12.

Low plasma concentrations of vitamin B-12 are common in Indians, possibly due to low dietary intakes of animal-source foods. Whether malabsorption of the vitamin contributes to this has not been investigated. A rise in the plasma holotranscobalamin (holo-TC) concentration after a standard dose of oral vitamin B-12 has been proposed as a measure of gastrointestinal absorption in people with normal plasma vitamin B-12 concentrations.

Determinants of incident hyperglycemia 6 years after delivery in young rural Indian mothers: the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS).

Objective: To study determinants of incident hyperglycemia in rural Indian mothers 6 years after delivery.

Research Design And Methods: The Pune Maternal Nutrition Study collected information in six villages near Pune on prepregnant characteristics and nutrition, physical activity, and glucose tolerance during pregnancy. An oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was repeated 6 years after delivery.