Effects of Neonatal TPN feeding on Biomarkers of Adult Chronic Diseases.

Nutrition during the perinatal period plays a major role in determining the long-term health of the infant. Alterations from normal nutrition during this critical period in life will determine the quality of health not only during childhood, but also into adulthood. A significant number of infants with many disease conditions are given life-saving intravenous nutrition (TPN- Total Parenteral Nutrition) which drastically improves their survival rates. However, TPN-fed infants are at risk for several deleterious health effects such as fatty liver, nutrient toxicities, diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension and obesity. Recent studies have suggested that TPN in early life can program later metabolism, however persistence of this metabolic dysfunction beyond weaning is unknown. Creatine and betaine are important in methyl metabolism and can affect programming of metabolism via epigenetics. Moreover, these are novel nutrients in TPN. Hence, the research objective of this study is to determine long term effects of early TPN on biomarkers of adult chronic diseases using Yucatan miniature pigs as the animal model. We hypothesized that optimizing methyl groups via supplementing betaine and creatine will prevent early biomarkers of chronic diseases in later life.