Faster rehabilitation weight gain is associated with liver fat in adult survivors of childhood severe acute malnutrition

Abstract

BackgroundNutritional rehabilitation during severe acute malnutrition (SAM) aims to quickly restore a healthy body weight, but rapid weight gain has been associated with later cardiovascular risk. We hypothesized that faster weight gain during SAM rehabilitation and post-hospitalization is associated with liver fat in adult survivors.MethodJamaican adult survivors of childhood SAM underwent abdominal CT scan to estimate liver fat as mean liver attenuation (MLA) and liver spleen ratio (L/S). Birth weight (BW) and anthropometry measured during, and post-hospitalization were abstracted from admission records.ResultsWe studied 42 marasmus survivors (MRs) and 40 kwashiorkor survivors (KWs). MRs had a lower mean BW (SD) 2.5 (0.8) vs 3.0 (0.7) kg; p=0.01) and were more wasted (p<0.001) and stunted (p=0.03) than KWs on admission to hospital. MRs and KWs had similar rates of rehabilitation weight gain, which was inversely associated with MLA among all survivors of SM (r=-0.246, p=0.029), but only in MRs when assessed by diagnosis (r= -0.449, p=0.004). The association between rehabilitation weight gain and adult liver fat in MRs was not altered by BW, admission wasting or stunting. In KWs, post-hospitalization height gain was inversely associated with MLA (difference = -0.64, 95%CI: -0.64 to -0.13; p=0.006).ConclusionsFaster rehabilitation weight gain is associated with liver fat in adult survivors of childhood severe acute malnutrition. The finding that BW did not influence these outcomes may reflect the timing of the nutritional insult in utero. Target weight gain during nutritional rehabilitation may need to be lowered to optimize long-term outcomes in these children.

Faster rehabilitation weight gain during childhood is associated with risk of non-communicable disease in adult survivors of severe acute malnutrition

“…However, while the tendency to store fat abdominally might be a persisting response to adverse conditions and growth failure in fetal life and infancy [ 29 ], we have shown this tendency to store fat in the abdominal compartment to be independent of minimum weight-for age z-score during hospitalization. Similarly, we recently reported that children who experienced faster weight gain during nutritional rehabilitation had greater liver fat as adults, and this relationship was independent of weight-for age z-score at admission [ 30 ]. Therefore, the association between rehabilitation weight gain in childhood and adult android fat in this group of young, normal-weight SAM survivors could signal an increased risk of clinical NCDs as they age.…”