Childhood diet and insulin-like growth factors in adulthood: 65-year follow-up of the Boyd Orr Cohort

Abstract

Objective: High levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) are associated with an increased cancer risk and reduce risk of diabetes and coronary heart disease. We investigated associations of diet in childhood, in particular energy intake, with the IGF system in adulthood to determine if IGF-I -disease associations could be linked to early nutrition. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Sixteen survey centres in England and Scotland that originally participated in the Carnegie (Boyd Orr) Survey of Diet and Health in Pre-War Britain, 1937-1939. Subjects: Seven hundred and twenty-eight participants (679 with complete data) in the Boyd Orr cohort. Methods: Participants were originally surveyed between 1937 and 1939 (at median age 5.8 years; inter-quartile range: 2.9-9.6) and were followed up for 65 years. Dietary exposure in childhood was assessed from 7-day household food inventories. Outcomes are expressed as regression coefficients for the change in IGF per standard deviation increased childhood nutrient or food intake, as derived from levels of household consumption. Results: In fully-adjusted models, energy-rich family diets in childhood were not associated with IGF-I (regression coefficient: 0.9 ng/ml; 95% confidence interval (CI): À1.8, 3.7), IGF-II, IGF binding proteins (IGFBP)-2 or IGFBP-3 in adulthood. IGF-I was associated inversely with childhood family-diets high in milk (À2.5 ng/ml; À5.1, 0.1; P ¼ 0.05) and positively with vegetable-rich diets (3.5 ng/ml; 0.9, 6.1; P ¼ 0.009). IGF-I was not associated with family diets rich in protein, carbohydrates, fats, calcium, meat or fruit. IGF-II, IGFBP-2 and IGFBP-3 were not related to childhood family diet. Conclusions: This study suggests that energy-rich family diets in childhood do not program the IGF system in adulthood. As childhood diet was based on household consumption, however, measurement error may obscure individual-level diet-IGF associations. The associations of milk-and vegetable-rich family diets in childhood with IGF-I could be chance findings, but nevertheless are consistent with recent publications and warrant further investigation.

Late introduction of complementary feeding, rather than duration of breastfeeding, may protect against adult overweight

“…Our finding of no association between BF and obesity in adulthood is in line with other studies of varying size, design, and confounder control (7,(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34), although one study suggested that BF was associated with an increased risk of obesity (35). Compared with many of these studies, an advantage of our study was the use of information on BF collected at the end of infancy compared with maternal recall later in childhood (31,33,34) or in adulthood (7,35).…”

Early programming of the IGF-I axis: Negative association between IGF-I in infancy and late adolescence in a 17-year longitudinal follow-up study of healthy subjects

“…Similar inverse findings are reported with respect to childhood diet and later IGF-I concentrations. Martin et al found that milk intake in childhood was inversely correlated with IGF-I concentrations 65 years later [13], and in childhood a high milk intake is associated with higher IGF-I levels [15]. Subjects randomized to receive milk supplementation of their diet during the first 5 years had significantly lower IGF-I levels at 25 years compared to controls indicating a down regulation of the IGF-I axis [16].…”

“…Therefore, early programming of the IGF-I axis may theoretically serve as a link between early life events and risk of adult life style diseases [7]. Furthermore, the IGF-I levels are strongly associated with height in childhood but not in adults [13].…”

Animal Protein Intakes during Early Life and Adolescence Differ in Their Relation to the Growth Hormone-Insulin-Like-Growth-Factor Axis in Young Adulthood1,2

“…Only 2 prospective studies have addressed the long-term relevance of (animal) protein intake during growth and/or its sources in relation to the GH-IGF-I axis. Ben-Shlomo et al (16) and Martin et al (17) found an inverse association between milk intakes in early childhood and IGF-I concentrations in young adulthood (16) and older age (17). The authors proposed that this inverse relation reflects an early programming of the GH-IGF-I axis in response to higher (animal) protein intakes in early life.…”