The Impact of Diet During Adolescence on the Neonatal Health of Offspring: Evidence on the Importance of Preconception Diet. The HUNT Study

Background: Emerging evidence suggests that parents' nutritional status before and at the time of conception influences the lifelong physical and mental health of their child. Yet little is known about the relationship between diet in adolescence and the health of the next generation at birth. This study examined data from Norwegian cohorts to assess the relationship between dietary patterns in adolescence and neonatal outcomes. Methods: Data from adolescents who participated in the Nord-TrA¸ndelag Health Study (Young-HUNT) were merged with birth data for their offspring through the Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN). Young-HUNT1 collected data from 8980 adolescents between 1995 and 1997. Linear regression was used to assess associations between adolescents' diet and later neonatal outcomes of their offspring adjusting for socio-demographic factors. Analyses were run separately for mother-offspring and father-offspring dyads. Analyses were also replicated with data from the Young-HUNT3 cohort (dietary data collected from 2006-08) and combined with Young-HUNT1 for pooled analyses. Findings: Young-HUNT1 included 2947 mother-offspring and 2140 father-offspring dyads, in Young-HUNT3 this was 850 and 391 respectively. In Young-HUNT1 there was evidence of associations between dietary choices, meal patterns and neonatal outcomes, these were similar in the pooled analyses but were attenuated to the point of non-significance in the smaller Young-HUNT3 cohort. Overall, energy-dense food products (e.g., crisps, sweets) were associated with a small detrimental impact on some neonatal outcomes whereas healthier food choices appeared protective (e.g., whole grain bread, daily breakfast and lunch). Interpretation: Our study suggests that if there are causal links between consumption of healthy and unhealthy food and meal patterns in adolescence with neonatal outcomes for offspring some years later. The effects seen are small and will require even larger studies with more state-of-the-art dietary assessment to estimate these robustly. Funding Statement: University of Agder funded this specific study and Co-author CK Hanson is funded by NIMHD of the National Institutes of Health under award number 1P50MD010431-01. Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The Young-HUNT study adhered to the Helsinki Declaration and was approved by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, the Regional and National Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Norway and the Norwegian Directorate of Health. Additional consent for this specific study was provided by the Central Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Norway (Reference: 2017/1220/REK midt).