child development

IISBR Faculty Awarded $200k Research Grant for Salivary Uric Acid Study from the NIH ECHO Opportunities and Infrastructure Fund

September 9, 2019 by IISBR

IISBR faculty and Assistant Professor Jenna Riis, Ph.D., was recently awarded a $200,000 grant as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) ECHO Opportunities and Infrastructure Fund to continue critical research on salivary uric acid.

IISBR’s latest Opportunities and Infrastructure Fund project proposes to expand Dr. Riis’ previous research on salivary uric acid by assaying archived saliva samples for uric acid from a subset of children at ages 6- and 24-months in the Family Life Project ECHO cohort. The new grant provides investigators an opportunity to examine the sensitivity of salivary uric acid to psychosocial stress among infants and young children and explore associations between early-life salivary uric acid and cardiometabolic risk in childhood and adolescence. The study is set to begin sample testing in the fall of 2019.

A previous study led by Dr. Riis showed salivary uric acid had a robust, positive serum–saliva correlation and salivary uric acid was relatively stable across time. The research also found differences in salivary uric acid based on sex and BMI. These data shed new light on salivary uric acid’s potential as an important biomarker for indexing health and disease risk.

In a subsequent collaboration with Jennifer Woerner, Ph.D., investigators also found that salivary uric acid at baseline was associated with blood pressure changes in response to a stressor task. Those findings suggest that salivary uric acid may be implicated in hypertension and cardiovascular health disparities through associations with elevated blood pressure responses to acute social stress. However, both of these studies were conducted with adults, and did not evaluate if the same associations are present among children.

The current grant will allow Dr. Riis and her collaborators to assess the utility of salivary uric acid as an environmentally-sensitive and minimally invasive biomeasure related to cardiometabolic outcomes in childhood and later life. “This study represents a new direction in the investigation of the links between early-life adversity and later-life health,” says Dr. Riis. “To fully understand how early environments impact health across a range of physical and mental domains, we must examine multisystem functioning and interactions with the environment in early life. With this new funding, we will be able to examine children’s biological adaptations to stress and adversity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, autonomic nervous, and purinergic systems, and determine whether purinergic functioning in infancy/early-childhood is associated with cardiometabolic health.”

Findings from this study may be quickly translated into real world applications, as dietary and pharmaceutical interventions targeting uric acid levels are already available. Dr. Riis notes: “We hope our findings can inform new methods for the large-scale assessment, monitoring, and potential prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic risks in early life.”

Adrenal function links to early postnatal growth and blood pressure at age 6 in children born extremely preterm.

February 5, 2019 by IISBR

Background: Low birth weight in term-born individuals correlates with adverse cardiometabolic outcomes; excess glucocorticoid exposure has been linked to these relationships. We hypothesized that cortisol and adrenal androgens would correlate inversely with birthweight and directly with markers of cardiometabolic risk in school-aged children born extremely preterm; further, preterm-born would have increased cortisol and adrenal androgens compared to term-born children.

Methods: Saliva samples were obtained at age 6 from 219 preterm-born children followed since birth and 40 term-born children and analyzed for dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and cortisol. Cortisol was also measured at home (awakening, 30′ later, evening).

Results: For preterm-born children, cortisol and DHEA correlated inversely with weight and length Z-scores at 36 weeks PMA and positively with systolic BP. DHEA was higher in preterm-born than term-born children (boys p < 0.01; girls p = 0.04). Cortisol was similar between preterm-born and term-born at study visit; however, preterm-born children showed a blunted morning cortisol. In term-born children, DHEA correlated with BMI (p = 0.04), subscapular, and abdominal skinfold thicknesses (both p < 0.01).

Conclusion: Cortisol and DHEA correlated inversely with early postnatal growth and directly with systolic BP in extremely preterm-born children, suggesting perinatal programming. Blunted morning cortisol may reflect NICU stress, as seen after other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

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Prenatal and postnatal cigarette and cannabis exposure: Effects on Secretory Immunoglobulin A in early childhood.

April 25, 2018 by IISBR

Background:

AIMS: Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SIgA) plays a critical role in immune functioning by preventing pathogens from adhering to epithelial mucosa. Most infectious agents enter the body via mucosal surfaces, thus SIgA serves in the defense against respiratory, intestinal, and urinogenitary infections, as well as periodontal disease and caries. This study examined the possibility that pre- and postnatal exposure to cigarette and cannabis is associated with individual differences in Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SIgA) levels in early childhood.
METHODS: Participants were 50 mother/infant (29 boys; 35% Caucasian) dyads recruited at their first prenatal appointment in a large northeastern community hospital in the United States. Repeated assessments of pre- and postnatal cigarette and cannabis were conducted beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy, using multiple methods (i.e., saliva, meconium, self-report). Infants were grouped into those prenatally exposed to either cigarette only (n = 19), cigarette and cannabis (n = 19), or with no prenatal substance exposure (n = 12). At age 5 years, the children’s saliva was collected and assayed for SIgA.
RESULTS: There were group differences in SIgA levels as a function of prenatal exposure to cigarette and cannabis – children in the cigarette only and the cigarette and cannabis groups had higher SIgA levels compared to the non-exposed children. Children who experienced the combination of postnatal exposure to cigarette and cannabis had higher levels of SIgA, even after accounting for prenatal exposures and other covariates relevant to immune system functioning.
CONCLUSIONS: Prenatal and postnatal exposure to cigarette and cannabis may be associated with hyperactivity of mucosal immunity in early childhood. Links between cigarette and cannabis exposure and health problems in early childhood may be partially explained by prenatal and postnatal exposure-related changes in mucosal immunity.

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