Maternal nutrition during pregnancy is increasingly recognized for its importance in shaping offspring brain development, impacting structure and function that further influence long-term neuropsychological, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in children. Recent advancements in brain imaging technology provide new insights into fetal, neonatal, and pediatric brain morphometry (shape and size) and function. A recent literature review […]
Research
Microbes Colonizing Offspring’s Gut May Depend on Mom’s Diet
Research increasingly focuses on how the gut microbiome—the collection of microbes in our digestive system—develop, change and contribute to health. Investigators at the ACNC, led by Dr. Umesh Wankhade, used a mouse model to explore how a maternal diet, consumed before and during pregnancy, affects the gut microbiome of the following generation. Specifically, their team examined […]
Seeking an Easier Way to Assess Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Kids
Cardiorespiratory fitness is a key indicator of health. However, measuring peak oxygen consumption needed to determine cardiorespiratory fitness can be difficult to measure in children, who may not be able to, or willing to, push themselves and give a maximum effort during cardiopulmonary exercise testing. That’s why investigators at the ACNC explored if another measure, […]
DOP Faculty Secure More Than $3 Million in New NIH Funding for Fatal Fungus
Infectious Diseases experts William Steinbach, M.D., and Praveen Juvvadi, Ph.D., are establishing a new research program at Arkansas Children’s Research Institute to study a fungus considered to be the leading cause of death in pediatric patients with weakened immune systems.
Reviewing the Effect of Early Infant Diet on Neurodevelopment
Human milk consumption (being breastfed) during infancy is thought to give a slight cognitive advantage throughout early childhood compared to formula, independent of maternal education and intelligence scores. However, there are relatively few studies on the impact of diet on the structure and function of the developing infant brain. A recently published systematic review from […]
Does How One Remembers Being Fed As a Child Influence How One Feeds Children?
Children’s eating behaviors develop with influence from parent feeding styles, practices, and beliefs. Researchers examining childhood eating behaviors including ACNC faculty Taren Swindle, are interested in how classroom feeding practices employed by early education staff, who also interact with children during mealtimes, associate with their own childhood experiences. To examine how classroom feeding practices are […]
Effects of Short-term Supervised Exercise Training on Liver Fat in Adolescents with Obesity
Center investigators Drs. Eva C. Diaz, Xiawei Ou, Elisabet Børsheim, were part of a team that recently published results from a 4-week RCT examining the effects of short-term supervised exercise training on liver fat in adolescents with obesity. The supervised exercise [high-intensity interval training (HIIT)] had beneficial effects on markers of cardiometabolic health, and after limiting analysis […]
Association Between Adiposity During Pregnancy and Offspring’s Physical Activity – Modified by Offspring Sex
Maternal obesity during pregnancy increases risk of obesity and disease in the offspring across the lifespan. Animal models indicate that children born to mothers with obesity are less physically active -however, such studies in humans are complex requiring long follow-ups. Investigators at the ACNC analyzed data from The Glowing Study to evaluate the association between […]
Banana Genotype and Ripening Method Affect Carotenoid Content and Bio-accessibility
Biofortification programs aimed at reducing vitamin A deficiency in vulnerable populations focus on staple crops, such as bananas. What is not well known is how banana’s genetics and ripening methods effect provitamin A carotenoid content and perhaps most critically, how much of it is available for absorption (bioaccessibility). A collaborative team led by Massimo Iorizzo […]
ACRI and Allergy-Immunology Faculty Take Part in Groundbreaking Trial
A recent clinical trial, sponsored and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and partly conducted at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), has discovered a groundbreaking treatment to help children and adults with potentially life-threatening food allergies better handle peanut, milk, egg, wheat, and tree nuts. The OUtMATCH study was published in The New England […]