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A.E. Armitage et al.
point nearest typical weaning) (Table 1) and at month 12 (Table 2). There were significant correlations in both cohorts of hepcidin and ferritin with sTfR, transferrin (assessed in VPM only), CRP and AGP, suggesting hep- cidin is regulated similarly in infants compared to older children/adults.21
Lower birthweight correlated significantly with lower hepcidin concentrations at five and 12 months in VPM, and at five months in VA, likely reflecting how individuals born with smaller iron endowments are at greater risk of
iron depletion during infancy.8 However, we also found strong evidence that the extent of antecedent weight gain (especially weight gain between 0 and 5 months of age) was negatively associated with the hepcidin and ferritin concentrations observed at both five and 12 months of age (Tables 1 and 2). In contrast, there were no significant associations of hepcidin and ferritin concentrations at any time point with subsequent weight gain in either cohort (data not shown).
We then constructed multivariate models to investigate
Table 2. Cross-sectional correlations between hepcidin, ferritin, and explanatory variables in infants at 12 months of age.
Data summarize 100 datasets in which any missing data were imputed using multiple imputation as described in detail in the Methods section and the Online Supplementary Appendix. Infection was coded as “no infection=0” and “occurrence of infection=1’; Season was coded as “dry season (November-June)=0” and “wet season (July-October)=1”; Sex was coded as “female=0” and “male=1”; Head Circ.: head circumference.“r” denotes the Pearson correlation coefficient. Significance level is highlighted with blue shading. Dark blue: P<0.001; mid-blue: P<0.01; light blue: P<0.05.
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haematologica | 2019; 104(8)