N&G 2021 Best Abstract Awards in two categories: Neonatology/Infancy and Obesity

We are pleased to present the N&G 2021 Best Abstract Awards. The N&G award recognizes young physicians for their work in two categories: Neonatology/Infancy and Obesity. The awards are supported by an educational grant from the Nestlé Nutrition Institute for the best abstracts submitted to 8^th International Conference on Nutrition & Growth.

The award recipients, selected by the N&G scientific committee,  will be presented during the Opening Address. Each abstract will receive a €5,000 prize.

Join us in congratulating the winners:

The Infancy Best N&G Research Award 

Winner: Ms Zhifei Liu – Doctoral researcher

Affiliation: Center for Child, Adolescent and Maternal Health Research, Tampere University, Finland

Abstract title: SUPPLEMENTATION OF INFANT DIETS WITH SMALL QUANTITY LIPID-BASED NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENTS DOES NOT IMPROVE INTESTINAL HEALTH AMONG 18-MONTH-OLD MALAWIAN CHILDREN

Lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNS) have been found to improve child growth and reduce child mortality. However, the exact mechanism of action is unclear. One potential pathway is linked to improvement in intestinal health status through impacting on biomarkers of intestinal inflammation, regeneration and repair, and permeability. Our study aimed to test the hypothesis that small-quantity LNS (SQ-LNS) could reduce the levels of intestinal inflammation, regeneration and repair, and permeability in 18-month-old children.

Introduction

Zhifei Liu is a doctoral researcher at the Center for Child, Adolescent and Maternal Health Research, Tampere University. Before coming to Tampere University, she received her Master of Public Health at Lanzhou University. Currently her doctoral study is focused on the effect of nutrient supplements on children’s intestinal health in early life and the associations between intestinal health, child growth and environmental exposures. Her study will help to advance in planning of intervention strategies for improving children’s intestinal health especially in low and middle-income countries. She is also working as a research assistant for LAKANA project which focuses on determining whether the mass administration of azithromycin antibiotic to asymptomatic children can reduce the high mortality rate of 1 to 11-month-old children.

The Obesity Best N&G Research Award

Winner: Dr Anne Ahrendt Bjerregaard

Affiliation: Epimiology, Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Abstract title: PROSPECTIVE ANALYSES OF THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INTAKE OF SUGAR SWEETENED BEVERAGES IN CHILDHOOD AND ADIPOSITY MARKERS

Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) has been suggested to be one single, easily targeted factor contributing to the obesity epidemic. Concurrently, the increased prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), has been suggested to contribute, by ‘foetal programming’ mechanisms, to maintaining the high obesity prevalence. The aim of this study was to investigate whether high intake of SSB during childhood is a risk factor for adiposity during adolescence among children born to women free from (n=608) or diagnosed with gestational diabetes (n=626) during pregnancy.

Introduction

Anne Ahrendt Bjerregaard is postdoc at the Center for Clinical Research and Prevention in the Section for Epidemiology. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition and a PhD in Public health and Epidemiology from University of Copenhagen.

Anne started her research career focusing on development and validation of food frequency questionnaires (FFQ) and data assessment on food and physical activity habits among Danish adolescents. She has many years of experience in working with the Danish National Birth Cohort and striving to ensure high-quality data, she has contributed with important data assessment for use in nutritional epidemiology. Anne focusses on disentangling associations between dietary exposures in fetal life and in childhood and lifestyle factors in childhood including growth, metabolic profiles, and determinants of physical activity habits and different dietary indices such as a Healthy Eating Index. I.e. she found that maternal dietary habits during pregnancy was highly associated with offspring dietary habits 14 years later beyond what could be explained by socioeconomics and other lifestyle factors. This work was published in a PLoS Medicine special issue in 2019. Moreover, she presented her work at several international conferences since 2015.

In her position as postdoc, she also focuses on studying associations between education, labor market participation, physical performance, and biomedical profiling among other things within multiple chemical sensitivities cases and non-cases. This work will be based on data from the Danish Study of Functional Disorders.