HJNO Sep/Oct 2019

38 SEP / OCT 2019  I  Healthcare Journal of New Orleans   Healthcare Briefs to spur additional development of commercializ- able technologies.” By permanently securing a portion of licens- ing income for the LSU LIFT2 Fund, LSU has ensured continual reinvestment in new, innova- tion opportunities and affirmed its commitment to advancing discoveries for public benefit. Mov- ing concepts closer to commercialization is the fundamental purpose of the LSU LIFT2Fund. Six Organizations Receive Grant Funding for Food Insecurity Projects Louisiana Healthcare Connections has announced the award of $90,000 in grant funds to six healthcare and community organizations in support of community-level projects focused on reducing food insecurity and hunger in Louisiana. Award recipients include: * Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Alpha Beta Omega Chapter – GNO-ABO Charitable & Edu- cational Foundation, Inc., in NewOrleans, La., for The Pantry Payback, to address food insecurity among college and university students in New Orleans. • HOPE Ministries, in Baton Rouge, La., for Fixer Upper – The Pantry Edition, to expand pantry space for streamlined services for the Client Choice Food Pantry. • It Takes a Village BR, in Baton Rouge, La., for Love Out Loud Sundays, a meals and food pan- try program for disadvantaged individuals and families in Greater Baton Rouge. • LTP Medical Mobile, Inc., in Ruston, La., for The Health Hut, a program to improve access to healthy foods and nutritional awareness through dietetic support and budget-friendly nutritional education. • Second Harvest Food Bank, in New Orleans, La., for Feeding Hope, a collaborative part- nership with AcadianaCares to support a food pantry for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS, Research Finds Pre-PregnancyWeight Affects Infant Growth Response to Breast Milk In the first study of its kind, LSU Health New Orleans researchers report that women’s pre-preg- nancy overweight or obesity produces changes in breast milk, which can affect infant growth. The research findings are published in PLOS ONE. “The importance of this study is that it demonstrates that breast milk contents can vary depend- ing onmother’s weight status at the time of conception and further impact the growth and develop- ment of breastfeeding infants,”said Henry Nuss, PhD, assistant research professor of behavioral and community health sciences at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health, and lead author. “Childhood obesity rates in the U.S. have increased significantly in recent decades,”notedMelinda Sothern, PhD, professor of behavioral and community health sciences at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health.“Althoughmany studies have shown that breastfeedingmay be protective against excessive weight gain during early life, we do not fully understand why.” Breast milk contains pro-inflammatory proteins such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-?) and interleukin-six (IL-6), as well as hormones like insulin and leptin, and anti-inflammatory poly- unsaturated fatty acids, such as omega-3 (DHA) and omega-6 (EPA). If and how their interaction may influence infant growth has been unknown. The research team set out to discover the interrelationships between these compounds in blood and breast milk in early postpartumwomen with normal BMIs and with overweight/obesity before pregnancy to determine if these components correlated to infant growth measures at age four to eight weeks. They compared polyunsaturated fatty acids, inflammatory markers, and hormones to infant weight, length, head circumference, and percent fat mass at four to eight weeks postpartum in the same group of 33 women.The researchers found that pro-inflammatory qualities of breast milk were associated with infant growth measures regardless of maternal pre-pregnancy BMI. However, infants born to women with overweight or obesity demonstrated less responsive growth to breast milk. “Infants who are born tomothers of unhealthy weight statusmay bemetabolically programmed to have a less favorable growth response to breast milk,”Nuss said.“These finding suggest that women of childbearing age who anticipate having a child should consider their weight status as a poten- tial risk factor for adverse growth outcomes.”  The research team, which also included Jovanny Zabaleta, PhD, associate research professor of pediatrics at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, as well as researchers from Pennington Biomedical Research Center, concluded that more studies are needed to assess longitudinal effects of this impact. This research was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Louisiana/Pennington Nutrition Obesity Research Center.