Perinatal inflammation and childhood adiposity - a gender effect?

To determine the association of maternal and fetal inflammatory factors with gender-specific infant adiposity, independent of leptin. Analysis of anthropometry from 265 mother-infant pairs at birth and 280 pairs at 6 months from the randomised control trial of low glycaemic index diet in pregnancy (ROLO) study (Randomised control trial of low glycaemic index diet) and their association with Maternal TNF-alpha, interleukin 6 and leptin as measured in early and late pregnancy and fetal levels in cord blood. No associations were noted in the male cohort. On multiple regression amongst the female neonatal cohort late pregnancy IL-6 was inversely associated with sum of skinfolds ( ≤ .001); at 6 months infant sum of skinfolds were positively associated with early pregnancy IL-6 ( = .046) and central adiposity positively associated with early pregnancy TNF alpha ( = .018) independent of leptin. Although maternal inflammatory cytokines were not associated with neonatal adiposity independent of leptin (as this association is known), both IL-6 and TNF-α were associated with female infant anthropometry at 6 months of age independent of leptin. These results suggest inflammatory cytokines may exert an influence on later infant adiposity with a tendency to influence female adiposity more than male. Further research is required to ascertain whether these cytokines may be used as reliable early predictors of infant adiposity.