Nutrition and Growth

B. Koletzko, R. Shamir, D. Turck, M. Phillip

• Publisher: S. Karger
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9783318025668
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Endocrinology & Metabolism

The relation between nutrition and growth in children is one of the key concerns of pediatric health that touches a multitude of specialties. Exchanging concepts and knowledge between professionals of all the different disciplines involved is thus crucial to facilitate research and interdisciplinary clinical collaborations. The present 'Yearbook on Nutrition and Growth' is unique in its concept: The contributing editors of each chapter have chosen recent journal articles that have the most potential in relation to the topic of their chapter. Providing the practicing physician with succinct editorial comments, the editors also evaluate the clinical importance of each article and discuss its application. This yearbook is a valuable resource for pediatricians interested in the subspecialties of nutrition, endocrinology and gastroenterology, but also for pediatric nutritionists and dieticians, and other health professionals involved in the care of children.

Koletzko B, Shamir R, Turck D, Phillip M (eds): Nutrition and Growth: Yearbook 2014.
World Rev Nutr Diet. Basel, Karger, 2014, vol 109, pp 54-88 (DOI: 10.1159/000356108)

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Nutrition and Growth in Chronic Diseases

Corina Hartman^1,2, Mabrouka A. Altowati³, S. Faisal Ahmed³ and Raanan Shamir^1,2

¹Institute of Gastroenterology, Nutrition and Liver Diseases, Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, Clalit Health Services, Petach-Tikva, Israel
²Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
³Developmental Endocrinology Research Group, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, UK

Both acute and chronic diseases can affect nutritional status and growth. Acute disease exerts reversible effects on rate of weight gain whereas chronic disease may result in changes in weight and height gain with potential long-lasting effects including poor response to disease treatment and reduced final adult height. Nutritional support is needed in many different clinical conditions ranging from children with anorexia associated with acute infectious disease to malnourished children with chronic disease. Administration of appropriate nutritional support is conditioned by the understanding of the multiple changes that take place in dietary intake, metabolic rate and changes in physical activity. Proper nutritional support should both prevent weight loss in the short term and promote appropriate growth in the long term. Chronic disease may also affect pubertal progress which in turn may have led to a number of effects including poor growth. This chapter presents a selection of last year's publications that focused on the nutritional support and growth in several of the most common chronic diseases of children.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Mechanism of Growth Impairment

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Innate dysfunction promotes linear growth failure in pediatric Crohn's disease and growth hormone resistance in murine ileitis

D’Mello S¹, Trauernicht A¹, Ryan A¹, Bonkowski E¹, Willson T^1,3, Trapnell BC², Frank SJ⁴, Kugasathan S⁵, Denson LA^1,3

¹Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA; ²Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA; ³Department of Cancer and Cell Biology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA; ⁴Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and Medical Service, Birmingham VA Medical Center, Birmingham, AL, USA; ⁵Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

Inflamm Bowel Dis 2012; 18:236-245

Background: A previous study by the same authors suggested that patients with elevated granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor autoantibodies (GM-CSF Ab) are more likely to experience complicated ileal disease requiring surgery. The aim of this report was to investigate any association between GM-CSF Ab and CARD15 risk allele (C15+GMAb+) with growth failure in CD, and growth hormone (GH) resistance in a model of murine ileitis.

Methods: 229 children with Crohn's disease (CD) recruited at two sites had CARD 15 genotype, serum GM-CSF Ab, GH-binding protein (GHBP), height (HtSDS) and weight (WtSDS) z-scores evaluated at diagnosis. There were 45 patients with both a CARD15 risk allele and elevated GMCSF Ab (C15+GMAb+) and 184 patients with one or neither, and served as controls. Age at diagnosis, age at blood sample collection, gender, and frequency of moderate-to-severe disease activity at diagnosis were similar between the groups. Ileitis was induced in CARD15-deficient mice by GM-CSF neutralization and NSAID exposure. Hepatic GH receptor (GHr) abundance and GH-dependent Stat5 activation were determined by Western blot and IGF-1 mRNA expression by real-time PCR.

Results: Patients with both elevated GM-CSF Ab/CARD15 have reduced mean HtSDS (-0.48) at diagnosis compared to -0.07 in the disease control cohort (p < 0.05). The proportion of growth retardation (HtSDS ≤-1) and growth failure (HtSDS ≤-1.8) were higher in the C15+GMAb+ group (38 and 16%, respectively) when compared to controls (18 and 6%). No difference was found in WtSDS between groups. Circulating GHBP, as a surrogate indicator for tissue GHR abundance, was significantly decreased in the C15+GMAb+ group. In univariate analysis, the C15+GMAb+ state was strongly associated with small bowel location. The C15+GMAb+ state was not associated with WtSDS. In stepwise multivariate analysis, the inclusion of small bowel location reduced the effect of C15+GMAb+ state upon HtSDS, while the inclusion of WtSDS reduced the effect of small bowel location upon HtSDS. Hepatic GHR abundance and GH induction of Stat5 tyrosine phosphorylation and IGF-1 mRNA expression in male CARD15-deficient mice with ileitis was reduced.

Conclusion: The study showed that defects in innate immunity that are due to the presence of GM-CSF Ab in the CARD15-deficient host are associated with growth impairment in CD and hepatic GH resistance in murine ileitis. Growth failure in patients with CD and GH resistance in the animal model occurred in the absence of differences in inflammation or weight, suggesting a specific effect of the C15+GMAb+ state.

Comments

Several reports have investigated the possible mechanisms implicated in growth impairment in children with CD. However, many gaps still exist in our knowledge of this important complication. Studies have consistently shown that proximal small bowel disease location is associated with reduced linear growth [1, 2]. Male gender has also been associated with a predisposition to reduce linear growth [1, 2]. In this study, growth impairment in patients and GH resistance in the animal model occurred in the absence of differences in inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-6) or weight between two groups. Defective barrier function in small intestine has been suggested to directly induce GH resistance and growth failure. The authors highlight that in IBD, patient-dependent factors may also modulate growth independent of inflammation. This link between the gastrointestinal system and growth may also exist in conditions other than IBD.

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Serum antibodies and anthropometric data at diagnosis in pediatric Crohn's disease

Trauernicht AK, Steiner SJ

Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology/Hepatology/Nutrition, James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

Dig Dis Sci 2012; 57: 1020-1025

Background: Patients diagnosed with IBD have variable immune responses to microbial antigens including the formation of antibodies to Escherichia coli outer-membrane protein C (OmpC) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ASCA), and autoantigens to perinuclear antineutrophil antibody (pANCA)/neutrophil-specific nuclear autoantibodies (NSNA). These serum immune responses may correlate with the location of the disease and may be used to predict disease progression. An increased number of serum immune responses and an increased level of response are positively correlated with the severity of the disease. In this research the authors evaluated serum immune responses and anthropometric measurement at the time of initial diagnosis for pediatric CD patients.

Methods: This retrospective report looked at height and weight z-score in 102 children (mean age 11.9 years) with CD before diagnosis and compared the anthropometric data among groups according to presence of specific antibodies at time of diagnosis.

Results: The authors showed that the mean weight and height z-score were lower in subjects with positive ASCA titers than in patients without any antibodies present.

Conclusion: The newly diagnosed CD patients with positive ASCA antibodies had lower mean height and weight z-scores. The authors claimed that some groups of children with CD can be at greater risk of growth impairment before diagnosis.

Comments

This is the first report which examines the correlation between growth data at the time of diagnosis and serum immune responses in children with IBD. Although it is possible that this information may allow improvement in tailoring of therapy to optimize growth outcome in an individualized manner, there is a need to perform some longitudinal studies to confirm this impression. These data also highlight the need to a better understanding of the interaction between circulating markers of inflammation and the endocrine and paracrine control of growth.

Pharmacokinetic Study

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Mathematical modeling to restore circulating IGF-1 concentrations in children with Crohn's disease-induced growth failure: a pharmacokinetic study

Rao A¹, Standing JF², Naik S¹, Savage MO³, Sanderson IR¹

¹Centre for Digestive Diseases, Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK;² Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Unit, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK; ³Centre for Endocrinology, William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK

BMJ 2013; 3: 1–11

Background: Around a third of the children with CD experience impairment in linear growth, caused in part by undernutrition and in part by the direct effects of inflammation on growth. Children with active CD have high cytokine levels and low IGF-1. In vitro studies have shown a strong link between inflammatory cytokines, IGF-1 and poor growth and reported of a state of functional GH insensitivity secondary to decreased response of IGF-1 to GH. Control of inflammation/significant reduction in cytokine levels and subsequent increase in IGF-1 hence are the first steps in improving growth. However, in some of children, inflammation remains intractable despite use of advanced therapy and there is no agreed growth-promoting treatment for them. Recently, recombinant human IGF-1 (rhIGF-1) has been used as a growth-promoting therapy for children with GH insensitivity syndrome. This group of researchers hypothesized that IGF-1 concentration in children with active CD and poor linear growth could be restored by administration of rhIGF-1. The difficulty is that restoring the IGF-1 level within a normal range is not straightforward and high and sustained IGF-1 levels over time have been associated with an increased incidence of colon cancer in adults with acromegaly. This could, in theory, represent an additional hazard for children with CD, already exposed to chronic inflammation, also a risk factor for intestinal cancer. The authors postulate that developing a mathematical model for IGF-1 treatment may better define the dosing regimen which restores IGF-1 concentration to a normal range without the further risk of cancer.

Methods: This was a pharmacokinetics intervention study in 8 children over 10 years with active CD (C-reactive protein >10 mg/l or erythrocyte sedimentation rate >25 mm/h) and height velocity SDS <-2 SDS. Subcutaneous rhIGF-1 (120 μg/kg) per dose was given over two admissions: the first as a single dose and the second over 5 days as twice-daily doses. The primary endpoint was a significant increase in serum IGF-1.

Results: Twice-daily subcutaneous rhIGF-1 led to a significant increase of circulating IGF-1 over a sustained period with low variability between peaks. In covariate analysis, disease activity significantly reduces endogenous production of IGF-1.

Conclusion: IGF-1 dosing using a mathematical model including age, weight and disease activity, normalized the IGF-1 level in over 95% of children with CD and achieved levels below +2.5 SDS of normal population mean, a level not associated with cancer risk.

Comments

The study is the first interventional study on IGF-1 treatment in children with CD. The authors used a mathematical model to determine the ...