Skip to main content
NUTRITION 2023 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back

Topical Area: Obesity

Obesity (Poster Session)

(P31-062-23) Maternal Body Composition and Its Impact on Short Chain Fatty Acid and Microbiome Profiles of Breast Milk in Caucasian Women of Northeast Tennessee

Monday, July 24, 2023
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board 284

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Kristy L. Thomas, BS

    Graduate Assistant
    East Tennessee State University
    Johnson City, Tennessee, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • AW

    Amy E. Wahlquist, MS

    East Tennessee State University

  • WC

    William A. Clark, PhD, RD

    Professor of Clinical Nutrition/Associate Dean for Research
    East Tennessee State University
    Johnson City, Tennessee, United States

Disclosure(s):
Kristy L. Thomas, BS: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
William A. Clark, PhD, RD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine if differences in breast milk (BM) short chain fatty acid (SCFA) and microbiome profiles are correlated to maternal BMI. Our hypothesis is that BM SCFA are a reflection of colonic SCFA distribution and concentration and may reflect microbiome diversity in the maternal gut.

Methods: Study design-This was a cohort study in which forty-six Caucasian participants were recruited from BABE Breastfeeding Coalition of Tri-Cities, divided into two groups, one group with normal pre-gravid BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 kg/m2 (n=23) and the other group with overweight or obese pre-gravid BMI greater than 25.0 kg/m2 (n=23). Each participant completed a demographic and health survey and provided 4 ounces of expressed BM. This study was approved by the ETSU IRB (0915.8s-ETSU).

16s rRNA Isolation & Quantification- Microbiome analysis was performed on thirty-four samples (n=13 for overweight/obese, and n=21 for normal weight).  Qiagen QIAmp PowerFecal Pro DNA Kit was utilized for isolation of microbiome DNA; Amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA region was performed at the University of Tennessee Genomics Core Laboratory utilizing a modified Klindworth et al method.

Microbiome Analysis- Operational Taxonomic Unit (OUT) clustering and taxonomic analysis were performed using CLC Genomics Workbench.  Alpha diversity indexes were calculated using the Abundance Analysis tool, and the weighted Unifrac metric was used to calculate Beta diversity.

Fatty Acid Profile- BM samples were subjected to SCFA extraction and analysis using a modified Schwiertz et al. method. The resulting SCFA profiles were then utilized to determine if there were any significant differences between the groups.

Results: No significance was observed in BM microbiome between the normal weight and overweight/obese groups for alpha or beta diversity. Significance was detected between the groups for valeric (p=0.02) and isocaproic acids (p=0.05) with the normal weight group higher than the overweight/obese group. No significance was observed for any of the other SCFAs.

Conclusions: Although these results are not significant due to low sample size and lack of diversity, they potentially offer insights into the impact of maternal BMI on  microbiome and SCFA profiles, which can have implications for infant health and development.

Funding Sources: ETSU Small RDC Grant