An extremely important study has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition providing body composition reference curves for preterm infants.
The objective of this study was to create ADP-based body composition reference curves for preterm infants that approximate, as close as is feasible in live-born infants near birth, the body composition of the in utero fetus from 30 to 36 wk of gestation. This curve would provide a tool that could assist in the clinical management of individual preterm infants and advance the capacity for nutritional research.
Body composition was assessed at all centers with the use of infant Air Displacement Plethysmography (PEA POD) with identical measurement protocols. ADP was chosen and the preferred body composition assessment method because it is a good candidate for use in the NICU for routine nutritional status monitoring because the measurement is rapid, does not expose the infant to radiation, is well tolerated by small infants , and is able to detect changes in body composition after changes in diet.
According to this paper's authors, the newly developed body composition reference curves are likely to become a useful tool that may "facilitate comparisons of body composition status between groups of preterm infants under different intervention conditions in the research setting, and ultimately may help to guide personalized nutritional treatment of individual infants in the clinical setting".
The article details are the following:
- Title: "New body composition reference charts for preterm infants"
- Authors: Ellen W Demerath, William Johnson, Bridget A Davern, Christina G Anderson, Jeffrey S Shenberger, Sonya Misra, and Sara E Ramel
- Published in:Am J Clin Nutr November 2016, 104 (5)
The scientific article can be purchased at the following link: click here
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