Study finds low birth weight may cause lifelong problems processing medications

November 10, 2010

New research has found that a mother's poor nutrition during pregnancy and nursing can cause problems for her offspring's ability to process medications, even well into adulthood.

The results of the study, by Oregon State University researchers, suggest that in the future physicians prescribing drugs ranging from Tylenol to cancer chemotherapies may need to factor birth weight along with into dosing decisions for their patients.

In this laboratory study, the kidneys of underweight animals born to mothers fed low-protein diets during pregnancy and nursing had significantly less ability to process and transport drugs than animals whose mothers had adequate protein. This finding suggests that low birth weight may hinder the body's ability to process , thereby jeopardizing their effectiveness.

The culprit appears to be a protein called a "drug transporter," said Ganesh Cherala, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy.

"These transporters, which sit on the , grab the from the blood and put them into the cell," he explained. "Then a second set of transporters grab the drug from the cell and dump it into the urine."




Second, researchers have found a link between low birth weight and adult obesity in humans. Because current weight is a major determiner of drug dosages (along with height, age and gender), obese patients typically get higher doses from their doctors than non-obese patients. But if a patient's obesity stems from low birth weight, the higher dose may be more than his or her body can process.

"Let's say I'm low birth weight, and because of that I become obese," said Cherala, who works at the OSU College of Pharmacy's Portland laboratory at the Oregon Health Science University downtown waterfront facility. "If you dose me because of that higher body weight, you're actually compounding the problem. You're making the assumption that if you're higher body weight, you have more transporters. Actually, it's exactly the opposite."


"The main goal of our lab is to discover how we can use to optimize the dose and personalize the dosing regimen," Cherala said.

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