Grant: Operating Grant

When infants are exposed to perturbed nutrition shortly after birth, their metabolism is altered permanently. It has recently been shown that such infants have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases in adulthood including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Some nutrients, such as the amino acid methionine, have dual roles during growth. Methionine is incorporated into protein and is also responsible for methylation reactions which are critical in maintaining health. These methylation reactions not only can permanently change the person's susceptibility to disease later in life, but can also affect how nutrients are stored in the body. However, other dietary nutrients such as betaine and creatine can spare the need for methionine. Using the neonatal piglet as a model, we intend to measure the methionine requirement and determine how much methionine is spared when these other nutrients are added to the diet. Moreover, when infants are fed intravenously, this too seems to program later diseases so we will develop a model to investigate amelioration strategies. Overall, this research will help optimize nutrition recommendations for infants and potentially prevent chronic diseases later in life.