Human milk immune factors, maternal nutritional status, and infant sex: The INSPIRE study
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Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Abstract
Abstract
Objectives: Breastfeeding is an energetically costly and intense form of human
parental investment, providing sole-source nutrition in early infancy and bio active components, including immune factors. Given the energetic cost of lactation, milk factors may be subject to tradeoffs, and variation in concentra tions have been explored utilizing the Trivers-Willard hypothesis. As human
milk immune factors are critical to developing immune system and protect
infants against pathogens, we tested whether concentrations of milk immune
factors (IgA, IgM, IgG, EGF, TGFβ2, and IL-10) vary in response to infant sex
and maternal condition (proxied by maternal diet diversity [DD] and body
mass index [BMI]) as posited in the Trivers-Willard hypothesis and consider
the application of the hypothesis to milk composition.
Methods: We analyzed concentrations of immune factors in 358 milk samples
collected from women residing in 10 international sites using linear mixed effects models to test for an interaction between maternal condition, including
population as a random effect and infant age and maternal age as fixed effects.
Results: IgG concentrations were significantly lower in milk produced by
women consuming diets with low diversity with male infants than those with
female infants. No other significant associations were identified.
Conclusions: IgG concentrations were related to infant sex and maternal diet
diversity, providing minimal support for the hypothesis. Given the lack of asso ciations across other select immune factors, results suggest that the Trivers Willard hypothesis may not be broadly applied to human milk immune factors
as a measure of maternal investment, which are likely buffered against pertur bations in maternal condition
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Lactation, Human milk, Infant, Nutritional status
Citation
Caffé, B., Blackwell, A., Fehrenkamp, B. D., Williams, J. E., Pace, R. M., Lackey, K. A., Ruiz, L., Rodríguez, J. M., McGuire, M. A., Foster, J. A., Sellen, D. W., Kamau-Mbuthia, E. W., Kamundia, E. W., Mbugua, S., Moore, S. E., Prentice, A. M., Kvist, L. J., Otoo, G. E., Pareja, R. G., … Meehan, C. L. (2023). Human milk immune factors, maternal nutritional status, and infant sex: The INSPIRE study. American Journal of Human Biology, e23943.