Authors
Mahir Bhatt, Alice Rodriguez Rein, Justice K Boakye-Appiah, Inusah Abdul-Jalil, Markus van der Giet, Yaw Ampem Amoako, Frank P Mockenhaupt, Ina Danquah
Published in
International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. Pages 109124. Sep 22, 2026. Epub Sep 22, 2026.
Abstract
In rural Ghana, in utero exposure to malaria is associated with 0.20 mmol/L higher fasting plasma glucose (FPG) in adolescence. We aimed to determine whether appetite and food intake mediate this association.
We used data of 155 mother-child pairs who were recruited at delivery in 2000 with data on in utero exposure to malaria. In 2015, we assessed appetite, food intake, and cardio-metabolic traits of the teenaged children. Mediation analysis was used to determine the contributions of increased appetite and dietary patterns to the observed infection-FPG-association.
45% of participants had in utero exposure to malaria, and 72% presented with increased appetite. Four dietary patterns were identified: i) manufactured foods, ii) vegetables, iii) roots and tubers, iv) soup and fufu-based. In utero exposure to malaria was positively associated with increased appetite (odds ratio: 2.38, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.05, 5.60) and the roots & tubers pattern (beta: 2.23, 95% CI: 0.94, 3.54). This pattern tended to increase FPG (beta: 0.02, 95% CI: -0.01, 0.04 mmol/L), and mediated 60% of the infection-FPG-association.
In utero exposure to malaria appears to increase appetite and promote adherence to carbohydrate-dense diets in adolescence. This pattern may contribute to altered glucose metabolism in adolescence.
PMID:
42772589
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Sep 2026.
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