Associations between perinatal biomarkers of maternal dairy fat intake and child cognitive development: results from the EDEN mother-child cohort.

Background/objective: Offspring's optimal neurodevelopment depends on maternal dietary lipids supply during the perinatal period. Dairy products are an important source of fat in Western diets. This study aimed at examining the associations between maternal dairy fat intake during pregnancy, evaluated through biomarkers in perinatal biofluids (C15:0 and C17:0) and child's cognitive outcomes.

Subjects/methods: Participants (N up to 1200) were French mother-child pairs from the EDEN cohort study. Biomarkers were assessed in the following biofluids: maternal red blood cells (RBC) membrane at 24 weeks' gestation, cord RBC membrane, and colostrum. Cognitive outcomes were language abilities scores at ages 2 and 3 years and overall cognitive development scores at ages 3 and 5-6 years. Associations were assessed using multiple linear regression models adjusted for factors related to family socioeconomic context, maternal lifestyle, and healthy diet score. Interaction of any breastfeeding duration on the associations with dairy fat biomarkers in colostrum was studied.

Results: Positive associations were observed between levels of C17:0 in cord RBC and C15:0 in maternal RBC with language abilities. In children breastfed for at least 6 months, C15:0 level in colostrum was positively associated with language abilities at age 3 years and overall cognitive development at ages 3 and 5-6 years whereas C17:0 level was only associated with overall cognitive development at age 3 years.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that maternal higher intake of dairy fat during perinatal period could be potentially associated with offspring's better cognitive development. These pioneering results call for external validation to challenge their causality.