Serum Leptin, Adiponectin and Vaspin Concentrations in Early Infancy: Relation to Feeding Practices and Indices of Growth and Adiposity

Early infant feeding practices can be considered as a target for later obesity prevention. Investigating whether some adipokines are involved is particularly interesting. The aim of this study was to investigate leptin, adiponectin and vaspin concentrations under different feeding practices in early infancy and their relation with growth and adiposity indices. Sixty healthy term infants, 33 males and 27 females, aged 2-5 months were grouped according to feeding practices into 29 exclusively breastfed, 14 exclusively formula-fed and 17 mixed-fed, and their leptin, adiponectin and vaspin were quantified and correlated to infant weight-for-age, length-for-age, weight-forlength, body mass index (BMI)-for-age and head circumference-for-age WHO Z-scores. Neither anthropometric Zscores of males and females nor leptin, adiponectin or vaspin were affected by feeding practice. These adipokines were also not affected by age. In contrast to adiponectin and vaspin, leptin exhibited marked gender differences (p<0.05) in breastfed, formula-fed and mixed-fed infants. When all infants were analyzed together, leptin correlated positively (p<0.0001) with weight-for-age (r=0.68), length-for-age (r=0.62), weight-for-length (r = 0.44), BMI-forage (r=0.53) and head circumference-for-age (r=0.25) Z-scores. With the exception of the latter, concordant correlations for leptin were obtained when study groups were processed separately according to feeding practices. Both adiponectin and vaspin did not correlate with any anthropometric Z-scores. In conclusions, the results of our study do not support that variation of infant feeding practice has an important impact on leptin, adiponectin and vaspin concentrations in early infancy. Leptin seems to be gender-dependent and reflects growth and adiposity patterns in early infancy, independent of feeding practice. [Ahmad MN, Fahham LM. Serum Leptin, Adiponectin and Vaspin Concentrations in Early Infancy: Relation to Feeding Practices and Indices of Growth and Adiposity. Life Sci J 2014;11(10):89-97] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 15