Exposome score's impact on blood metabolites over time in children. Environmental exposures and unhealthy habits can harm children’s heart and metabolic health more than individually. A new University of Eastern Finland study highlights the importance of measuring these combined effects.
An exposome score, combining environmental and lifestyle factors, was linked to many blood metabolites related to cardiometabolic health, with some metabolites uniquely tied to the score. As part of the PANIC Study, 504 children aged 6-9 were followed for eight years in Kuopio, Finland. The findings were published in Communications Biology.
“This is the first long-term study to examine how an exposome score affects metabolic health from childhood to adolescence,” said author Darren Healy. The exposome includes environmental and lifestyle factors throughout life. In this EU-funded study (LongITools project), the exposome score covered diet, physical activity, sleep, air pollution, and parental socioeconomic status.
Previous research shows that heart and metabolic diseases can start developing in childhood. Blood metabolites, small compounds from metabolism, can show early changes before diseases appear. Advances in metabolomics have improved the accuracy of measuring these metabolites.
In this study, a higher exposome score, showing worse environmental exposures and lifestyle habits, was linked to changes in 31 blood metabolites in kids and teens. These metabolites included phospholipids.