Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: May 22, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: May 27, 2019 - Jun 10, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 14, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Targeting the Infant Gut Microbiota Through a Perinatal Educational Dietary Intervention: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial
Background:
The early life gut microbiota are an important regulator of the biological pathways contributing toward the pathogenesis of noncommunicable disease. It is unclear whether improvements to perinatal diet quality could alter the infant gut microbiota.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of a perinatal educational dietary intervention in influencing gut microbiota in mothers and infants 4 weeks after birth.
Methods:
The Healthy Parents, Healthy Kids randomized controlled trial aimed to recruit 90 pregnant women from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. At week 26 of gestation, women were randomized to receive dietary advice from their doctor (n=45), or additionally receive a dietary intervention (n=45). The intervention included an educational workshop and 2 support calls aiming to align participants’ diets with the Australian Dietary Guidelines and increase intakes of prebiotic and probiotic foods. The educational design focused on active learning and self-assessment. Behavior change techniques were used to support dietary adherence, and the target behavior was eating for the gut microbiota. Exclusion criteria were age under 18 years, diagnosed mental illnesses, obesity, diabetes mellitus, diagnosed bowel conditions, exclusion diets, illicit drug use, antibiotic use, prebiotic or probiotic supplementation, and those lacking dietary autonomy. The primary outcome measure is a between-group difference in alpha diversity in infant stool collected 4 weeks after birth. Secondary outcomes include evaluating the efficacy of the intervention in influencing infant and maternal stool microbial composition and short chain fatty acid concentrations, epigenetic profile, and markers of inflammation and stress, as well as changes in maternal dietary intake and well-being. The study and intervention feasibility and acceptance will also be evaluated as secondary outcomes.
Results:
The study results are yet to be written. The first participant was enrolled on July 28, 2016, and the final follow-up assessment was completed on October 11, 2017.
Conclusions:
Data from this study will provide new insights regarding the ability of interventions targeting the perinatal diet to alter the maternal and infant gut microbiota. If this intervention is proven, our findings will support larger studies aiming to guide the assembly of gut microbiota in early life.
ClinicalTrial:
Australian Clinical Trials Registration Number ACTRN12616000936426; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=370939
International Registered Report:
DERR1-10.2196/14771
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.