Vitamins and Minerals RIS Award Announcements

Sunday, June 9

5:15 PM - 5:30 PM

Location: 319

Objectives :

Iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) during infancy negatively impacts growth and cognitive development, as well as increases risk of morbidity and mortality. We recently showed that early-life anemia in human infants alters systemic metabolism in a sex-specific manner. The objective of this study was to find a mechanistic reason behind the changes in metabolism, and why there is greater morbidity and mortality of male compared with female infants. Here, we utilized a piglet model of iron deficiency and performed metabolomics profiling.

Methods :

Piglets (n = 20 male and 20 female) were either provided iron dextran (control) or saline (deficient) at birth and allowed to suckle from their sow until PD25, at which point the control piglets were weaned to a control (CON; 100 mg/kg) diet, and the deficient piglets were weaned to an iron deficient (ID; 10 mg/kg) diet until PD43. Body weight was recorded daily, and blood was collected weekly beginning at week 1 to assess hemoglobin concentrations and hematocrit. ¹H-NMR metabolomics was used to assess the effects of iron deficiency on blood metabolites at PD43.

Results :

In both sexes, body weight differed significantly with time and iron status (2-factor repeated-measures ANOVA within each sex), with ID subjects having a significantly lower body weight compared to CON beginning at PD24 in female and PD28 in male piglets. Hemoglobin and hematocrit also differed significantly with time and iron status for both sexes (2-factor repeated-measures ANOVA within each sex). While hemoglobin and hematocrit were found to be significantly lower in ID piglets compared to CON at all time points for both sexes, only female ID piglets developed average hemoglobin concentrations below the threshold for borderline anemia (80 mg/mL) or anemia (70 mg/mL) in weeks 2-6. Hemoglobin and hematocrit did not differ significantly between male and female subjects within each dietary treatment. ID was associated with altered concentrations of amino acids and ketone bodies (FDR-corrected p < 0.05) in both sexes with a greater impact on male compared to female piglets.

Conclusions :

These results suggest that the metabolic changes associated with ID differ between the sexes, with males disproportionately affected by iron status.

Funding Sources :

This work was supported by a John E Kinsella Endowment Award.