'Metabolic fingerprints' may help in diagnosing obesity: Study
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Baton Rouge, La: Pennington Biomedical Research Centre's lab is in research to understand the roots of obesity by studying the growth and metabolism rate of infants. Leanne Redman, director of the maternal and infant research lab at Louisiana State University said that the possibility of understanding obesity is done at this early stage as infants are not exposed to external factors and food other than breast milk or formula.
Just like how we have unique identities in our fingerprints, theories also claim that a "metabolic fingerprint" is set for life in individuals during birth.
Around 20 per cent of children and 40 per cent of adults in the US are affected by obesity which can also cater to higher health risks including stroke, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
This is a silent epidemic that is killing the generation, said researchers to NBC news.
The study will look into how infants burn energy, in calories.
"Getting a sense of kids that have lower resting energy expenditures early on, getting a sense about whether or not that infers long-term health consequences as kids get older, could potentially mean intervening at an earlier age and putting in lifestyle modifications well before there is the development of rapid weight gain," says Dr. Ryan Farrell, a paediatric endocrinologist.
An early diagnosis thus helps in developing preventive measures that help in controlling the consequences of this health condition.
Pennington Biomedical Research Centre is the only lab that has initiated studies on analysing infant metabolism, so far.