boden-food-plate-novel-interactive-web-based-method-for-assessment

'Boden Food Plate': Novel Interactive Web-based Method for the Assessment of Dietary Intake

Different methods can be used in research to assess dietary intake, many of which are still paper-based. Written estimated food diaries are often utilized ...

University of Sydney

The fetal environment has an important influence on health and disease over the life course. Maternal nutritional status during pregnancy is potentially a powerful contributor to the intrauterine environment, and may alter offspring physiology and later life cardio-metabolic risk. Putative early life markers of cardio-metabolic risk include newborn body fatness and cardiac autonomic control. We sought to determine whether maternal dietary carbohydrate quantity and/or quality during pregnancy are associated with newborn body composition and cardiac autonomic function. Maternal diet during pregnancy was assessed in 142 mother-infant pairs using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Infant adiposity and body composition were assessed at birth using air-displacement plethysmography. Cardiac autonomic function was assessed as heart rate variability. The quantity of carbohydrates consumed during pregnancy, as a percentage of total energy intake, was not associated with meaningful differences in offspring birth weight, adiposity or heart rate variability ( > 0.05). There was some evidence that maternal carbohydrate quality, specifically higher fibre and lower glycemic index, is associated with higher heart rate variability in the newborn offspring ( = 0.06). This suggests that poor maternal carbohydrate quality may be an important population-level inter-generational risk factor for later cardiac and hemodynamic risk of their offspring.

Alice Meroni

Biography

JoVE Journal Publications

Other Publications