Malnutrition continues to affect the growth and development of millions of children worldwide, and chronic undernutrition has proven to be largely refractory to interventions. Improved understanding of metabolic development in infancy and how it differs in growth-constrained children may provide insights to inform more timely, targeted, and effective interventions. Here, the metabolome of healthy infants was compared to that of growth-constrained infants from three continents over the first 2 years of life to identify metabolic signatures of aging. Predictive models demonstrated that growth-constrained children lag in their metabolic maturity relative to their healthier peers and that metabolic maturity can predict growth 6 months into the future. Our results provide a metabolic framework from which future nutritional programs may be more precisely constructed and evaluated.

营养不良继续影响着全球数百万儿童的生长发育，事实证明，长期营养不良在很大程度上难以干预。更好地了解婴儿期的代谢发育及其在生长受限的儿童中的差异可能会提供一些见识，以为更及时，更有针对性和有效的干预提供依据。在这里，将健康婴儿的代谢组与来自出生在前两年的三大洲生长受限的婴儿的代谢组进行了比较，以确定衰老的代谢特征。预测模型表明，生长受限的孩子相对于健康的同龄人而言，其代谢成熟滞后，并且代谢成熟可以预测未来6个月的增长。