University joins international nutrition study

Researchers at the University of Southampton have joined an international consortium, led by the Ludwig-Maximilians at the University of Munich, which has initiated a transnational research programme for prevention and intervention in pregnancy and early post natal life to tackle later obesity and associated disorders.

The University of Southampton's Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit and Institute of Developmental Sciences will host an almost £1 million programme of work to be carried out in Southampton.

The project team will investigate the impact of early nutrition on later health using local studies such as, the Southampton Women's Survey (SWS) and Southampton Initiative for Health.

Professor Keith Godfrey, who leads the Southampton EarlyNutrition team, and is Deputy Director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Unit in Nutrition, Diet and Lifestyle at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, says: “We are absolutely delighted to be a major part of this substantial EU project. The resulting resource for Southampton will allow a large number of important scientific projects aimed at understanding how nutrition early in life, for example in the womb and in infancy, might affect the risk of later obesity and ill-health.”

The research team will explore the role of early diet, lifestyle and physical activity in determining body composition in later childhood. Detailed assessment of these factors in mothers and children from the Southampton Women's Survey will be related to the child’s fat, muscle and bone mass measured by DXA scanning in a new follow up assessment at 10 to 11 years after birth.

Professor Mark Hanson, Director of the University's Institute for Developmental Sciences, adds: “This project will allow us to explore in detail how environmental factors, such as what a pregnant woman eats, might influence how genes are expressed in her developing baby. These findings may help us to find new ways of identifying, at birth, children who might be at increased risk of obesity and other disorders, such that preventive measures can be put in place early.”