The nutritional plane and composition during fetal life can impact upon growth and epigenetic regulation of genes affecting pancreatic β-cell development and function. However, it is not clear whether β-cell development can be altered by nutritional factors or growth rate after birth. We therefore investigated the effect of neonatal nutritional supplements on growth, glucose tolerance and pancreatic development in lambs.
Newborn lambs were randomised to daily nutritional supplements, calculated to increase macronutrient intake to a similar degree as human breast milk fortifier, or an equivalent volume of water, for two weeks while continuing to suckle ewe milk. Intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) was performed at 4 months of age, and pancreata collected for molecular analysis.
Supplemented lambs had slower weight gain than Controls. In supplemented lambs, insulin response to IVGTT was increased in males but decreased in females, compared to same sex controls, and was unrelated to growth rate. mRNA expression of key genes in β-cell development showed sexually dimorphic effects. Epigenetic change occurred in the promotor region of PDX1 gene with decreased suppression and increased activation marks in supplemented lambs of both sexes.
Nutritional interventions in early life have long-term, sex-specific effects on pancreatic function.Pediatric Research (2016); doi:10.1038/pr.2016.168.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 October 2017.
All research outputs
#18,467,278
of 22,882,389 outputs
Outputs from Pediatric Research
#4,176
of 5,091 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#240,299
of 313,450 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Pediatric Research
#35
of 49 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,882,389 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 11th percentile – i.e., 11% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,091 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.5. This one is in the 10th percentile – i.e., 10% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 313,450 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 12th percentile – i.e., 12% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 49 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 14th percentile – i.e., 14% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
