The relationship of obesity on adipokines levels in breast milk and blood serum from one-month postpartum mexican women

Abstract

Breastfeeding is essential for the long-term health of newborns because it has beneficial effects on their digestive, immune, and metabolic system. The composition of breast milk can be modulated by diverse factors, including pre-pregnancy excess body fat. Nowadays, adipokines in human milk are relevant hormones in research due to their roles in metabolism. However, their levels among women with different Body Mass Index (BMI) remain unclear. In Mexico, there is limited knowledge about this hormonal relationship with maternal obesity and its biological impact on their infants during the first month of life. Therefore, the present work aims to evaluate the influence of overweight and obesity on the concentrations of adipokines (adiponectin and its isoforms, leptin, resistin, IL-6, and TNF-alpha) in breast milk and blood serum from Mexican women at one-month postpartum. ELISA and Western Blot techniques were performed to quantify adipokines in human breast milk (HBM) and human blood serum (HBS) samples from 46 mothers categorized, based on their pre-pregnancy BMI, in normoweight (NW) group and overweight or obese (OW/OB) group. Results showed statistical differences between the study groups in both samples (HBM and HBS) in leptin (p=0.003 and p<0.001), IL-6 (p=0.027 and p=0.003), and TNF-alpha (p=0.040 and p=0.012). Significant Spearman correlations were found among adiponectin and its isoforms with mother-infant anthropometrics: weight gain during pregnancy (rs=-0.3419, p=0.0477), blood pressure for the mother (systolic: rs=-0.5689, p=0.0012 and diastolic: rs=-0.3432, p=0.0349) and high-molecular-weight (HMW) isoform with the weight-for-age at first month of life of the infant (rs=-0.4134, p=0.0207). These findings demonstrate that the degree of adiposity in Mexican mothers impact the hormonal adipokine profile of their breast milk and blood serum at one-month postpartum, which in turn influences the growth of their infants during the first month of life.