Nutrition & Body Composition in Infancy
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for infants until age 6 months. The scientific evidence for the recommendation is strong but several issues wait to be studied. Development of body composition until 1 year and association with factors which may be determinants for infant nutrition, their eating behavior and possibly temperament, have not been investigated in detail.
This prospective longitudinal study includes infants exclusively breastfed for 5-6 months or receiving complementary foods from 3-4 months in real-life setting in Iceland.
The project is funded by the Icelandic Research Fund.
Our principal investigator: Birna Þórisdóttir, Assistant professor in nutrition
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for infants until age 6 months. The scientific evidence for the recommendation is strong but several issues wait to be studied. Development of body composition until 1 year and association with factors which may be determinants for infant nutrition, their eating behavior and possibly temperament, have not been investigated in detail.
This prospective longitudinal study includes infants exclusively breastfed for 5-6 months or receiving complementary foods from 3-4 months in real-life setting in Iceland.
Investigating body composition is at ages 6 and 12 months with stable isotopes in singly or doubly labelled water
Investigating the infants’ temperament and appetite, and associations with hormones in breast milk
Measuring metabolizable breast milk energy with 2H18O, but such measures are lacking in the international literature
The scientific novelty of this study lies in studying the development of long-term body composition by technical methods alongside infant behavior and temperament, and the properties of breast milk. More comprehensive understanding of the relationships between infant diet, growth and behavior could be highly significant and have an impact on the development of infant nutrition recommendations.
- Birna Þórisdóttir - Assistant professor in nutrition, University of Iceland
- Geir Gunnlaugsson - Professor of Global Health, University of Iceland
- Inga Þórsdóttir - Professor of Nutrition, University of Iceland
- Jonathan Wells - Professor of Anthropology and Pediatric Nutrition, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, London, UK
- Mary Fewtrell - Professor of Paediatric Nutrition, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, London, UK
- Ronald E. Kleinman - Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, USA
Based on material from the study
- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition just published our original article on metabolizable energy content of breastmilk given to exclusively breastfed 6-month-olds: „Metabolizable energy content of breastmilk supports normal growth in exclusively breastfed Icelandic infants to age 6 months“
By Thorisdottir B, Odinsdottir T, Gunnlaugsson G, Eaton S, Fewtrell MS, Vázquez-Vázquez A, Kleinman RE, Thorsdottir I, Wells JCK. - An article published earlier this year 2023 in Maternal & Child Nutrition showed changes in the baby food market 2016, 2019 and 2021: „A repeated cross-sectional analysis of the Icelandic baby food market surveyed in 2016, 2019 and 2021“
- Petersen E, Thorisdottir B, Thorsdottir I, Gunnlaugsson G, Arohonka P, Erlund I, Gunnarsdottir I. Iodine status of breastfed infants and their mothers’ breast milk iodine concentration. Matern Child Nutr. 2020 Jul;16(3):e12993. doi: 10.1111/mcn.12993. Epub 2020 Mar 11. PMID: 32162412; PMCID: PMC7296790
- Poster Presentation from the 12th Nordic Nutrition Conference, 14 – 16 December 2020 (video recording)
The Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís) – Grant no 196157-051