LAUSR

Child malnutrition (CM) is a global public health problem. It contributes to poor health in one in four children under five years worldwide and causes serious health problems in children including stunted, wasted, and overweight growth. These serious public health issues lead to a higher chance of living in poverty in adulthood. Malnutrition related with reduced economic productivity and increases the serious national and international burden. Currently, there is no meaningful therapeutic intervention of CM, and the use of different therapeutic foods have shown poor outcomes among supplemented malnourished children. The role of metabolites and lipids has been extensively recognized as early determinants of child health, but their contribution in CM and its pathobiology are poorly understood. This perspective provides a most recent update on these aspects. After briefly introducing the disciplines of metabolomics and lipidomics, we describe a mass spectrometry-based metabolic workflow for analysis of both metabolites and lipids and summarize several recent applications of metabo-lomics and lipidomics in CM. Finally, we discuss the future directions of the field towards the development of meaningful interventions for CM through metabolomics and lipidomics advances.