Rauschert S, et al. – This study was designed to elucidate whether there was a correlation between early life factors BMI, waist circumference, and the metabolome in offspring at 20 years. While other studies have shown correlations between breastfeeding, obesity, and metabolite concentrations at younger ages, this was not evident in the study in young adults. They observed no correlation of metabolites previously correlated with waist circumference at 20 years and breastfeeding in early life.

Methods

• Researchers examined data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study applying 1,024 plasma samples from the 20–year follow–up.
• They applied a liquid chromatography, tandem mass spectrometry metabolomics approach to assess metabolites.
• They conducted multiple linear regression models to adjust relevant confounders.
• They further performed inverse probability weighting to adjust the 20–year data for differences in socioeconomic variables between participants and nonparticipants since the commencement of the study.

Results

• An inverse correlation between breastfeeding and BMI or waist circumference at 20 years was lost after adjusting for parental prepregnancy BMI and maternal smoking during pregnancy.
• No significant impact of breastfeeding on metabolite concentrations at 20 years was observed.