Abstract
Prenatal plus postnatal small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) improved child growth at 18 months in the International Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements DYAD trial in Ghana. In this secondary outcome analysis, we determined whether SQ-LNS versus prenatal iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation improves the cholesterol efflux capacity (CEC) of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) particles and alters their lipidomic, proteomic, or glycoproteomic composition in a subset of 80 children at 18 months of age. HDL CEC was higher among children in the SQ-LNS versus IFA group (20.9 ± 4.1 vs 19.4 ± 3.3%; one-tailed p = 0.038). There were no differences in HDL lipidomic or proteomic composition between groups. Twelve glycopeptides out of the 163 analyzed were significantly altered by SQ-LNS, but none of the group differences remained significant after correction for multiple testing. Exploratory analysis showed that 6 out of the 33 HDL-associated proteins monitored differed in glycopeptide enrichment between intervention groups, and 6 out of the 163 glycopeptides were correlated with CEC. We conclude that prenatal plus postnatal SQ-LNS may modify HDL protein glycoprofiles and improve the CEC of HDL particles in children, which may have implications for subsequent child health outcomes.