Babette S. Zemel, PhD

Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania

  1. United States

Biography

I am a biological anthropologist by training, and Professor of Pediatrics at The University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. I direct the Nutrition and Growth Laboratory at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which also serves as the Nutrition Core for the Center for Human Phenomic Science at my institution. The Nutrition and Growth Laboratory provides assessment of growth, body composition, energy expenditure, bone density and muscle strength and supports a broad, interdisciplinary group of investigators. 

My research program aims to improve understanding of lifelong health and how it relates to childhood antecedents of physical growth and maturation, body composition, population ancestry/genetics, and lifestyle factors. Such understanding has public health implications for disease prevention and lifelong wellness. It also addresses concerns for children across a wide spectrum of chronic diseases who experience impaired growth, altered body composition and limitations in nutrition and physical activity. I have primarily focused on two health concerns, bone fragility and obesity. I was the site PI for the multi-center, multi-ethnic, longitudinal, prospective study, the NICHD Bone Mineral Density in Childhood Study, and related studies investigating the genetics of bone accretion in childhood in this cohort. I have also conducted a study of bone accretion in very young children. These studies have provided reference ranges for bone density in children and advanced our understanding of bone mineral accretion from early childhood through adulthood, and effects of growth, muscle development, physical activity, diet and genetics during this critical life phase. The other broad theme in my research is childhood body composition and development of obesity. I lead the Infant Growth and Microbiome Study that is examining factors contributing to excess weight gain in African American infants and young children, including the gut microbiome and metabolome and contextual factors associated with growth and dietary intake. 

I have also developed reference ranges for assessment of growth and nutritional status in children with Down syndrome, premature infants, and DXA based body composition for children and adolescents. Additional accomplishments include behavioral interventions to evaluate the effect of increased calcium intake in school age children and a behavioral intervention to reduce energy intake and increase physical activity in obese adolescents. I also collaborate extensively with pediatric experts in children with chronic diseases such as kidney diseases, sickle cell disease, childhood cancer survivors, and cardiovascular diseases.

Recent Publications

For a full list of publications go to: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/babette.zemel.1/bibliography/public/

  1. Avitabile, C. M., McBride, M. G., Harris, M. A., Whitehead, K. K., Fogel, M. A., Paridon, S. M., & Zemel, B. S. (2022). Skeletal muscle deficits are associated with worse exercise performance in pediatric pulmonary hypertension. Front Pediatr, 10, 1025420. https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2022.1025420 

  2. Kalkwarf, H. J., Shepherd, J. A., Fan, B., Sahay, R. D., Ittenbach, R. F., Kelly, A., Yolton, K., & Zemel, B. S. (2022). Reference Ranges for Bone Mineral Content and Density by Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry for Young Children. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 107(9), e3887-e3900. https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgac323 

  3. Bittinger, K., Zhao, C., Li, Y., Ford, E., Friedman, E. S., Ni, J., Kulkarni, C. V., Cai, J., Tian, Y., Liu, Q., Patterson, A. D., Sarkar, D., Chan, S. H. J., Maranas, C., Saha-Shah, A., Lund, P., Garcia, B. A., Mattei, L. M., Gerber, J. S., Elovitz, M. A., Kelly, A., DeRusso, P., Kim, D., Hofstaedter, C. E., Goulian, M., Li, H., Bushman, F. D., Zemel, B. S., & Wu, G. D. (2020). Bacterial colonization reprograms the neonatal gut metabolome. Nat Microbiol, 5(6), 838-847. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-020-0694-0 

  4. Kralick, A. E., & Zemel, B. S. (2020). Evolutionary Perspectives on the Developing Skeleton and Implications for Lifelong Health. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne), 11, 99. https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2020.00099 

  5. Cousminer, D. L., McCormack, S. E., Mitchell, J. A., Chesi, A., Kindler, J. M., Kelly, A., Voight, B. F., Kalkwarf, H. J., Lappe, J. M., Shepherd, J. A., Oberfield, S. E., Gilsanz, V., Zemel, B. S., & Grant, S. F. A. (2019). Postmenopausal osteoporotic fracture-associated COLIA1 variant impacts bone accretion in girls. Bone, 121, 221-226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bone.2019.01.026 

  6. Cousminer, D. L., Mitchell, J. A., Chesi, A., Roy, S. M., Kalkwarf, H. J., Lappe, J. M., Gilsanz, V., Oberfield, S. E., Shepherd, J. A., Kelly, A., McCormack, S. E., Voight, B. F., Zemel, B. S., & Grant, S. F. (2018). Genetically Determined Later Puberty Impacts Lowered Bone Mineral Density in Childhood and Adulthood. J Bone Miner Res, 33(3), 430-436. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3320 

  7. Chesi, A., Mitchell, J. A., Kalkwarf, H. J., Bradfield, J. P., Lappe, J. M., Cousminer, D. L., Roy, S. M., McCormack, S. E., Gilsanz, V., Oberfield, S. E., Hakonarson, H., Shepherd, J. A., Kelly, A., Zemel, B. S., & Grant, S. F. (2017). A Genomewide Association Study Identifies Two Sex-Specific Loci, at SPTB and IZUMO3, Influencing Pediatric Bone Mineral Density at Multiple Skeletal Sites. J Bone Miner Res, 32(6), 1274-1281. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3097 

  8. Mitchell, J. A., Chesi, A., Elci, O., McCormack, S. E., Roy, S. M., Kalkwarf, H. J., Lappe, J. M., Gilsanz, V., Oberfield, S. E., Shepherd, J. A., Kelly, A., Grant, S. F., & Zemel, B. S. (2016). Physical Activity Benefits the Skeleton of Children Genetically Predisposed to Lower Bone Density in Adulthood. J Bone Miner Res, 31(8), 1504-1512. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.2872 

  9. Weaver, C. M., Gordon, C. M., Janz, K. F., Kalkwarf, H. J., Lappe, J. M., Lewis, R., O'Karma, M., Wallace, T. C., & Zemel, B. S. (2016). The National Osteoporosis Foundation's position statement on peak bone mass development and lifestyle factors: a systematic review and implementation recommendations. Osteoporos Int, 27(4), 1281-1386. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-015-3440-3 

  10. Chesi, A., Mitchell, J. A., Kalkwarf, H. J., Bradfield, J. P., Lappe, J. M., McCormack, S. E., Gilsanz, V., Oberfield, S. E., Hakonarson, H., Shepherd, J. A., Kelly, A., Zemel, B. S., & Grant, S. F. (2015). A trans-ethnic genome-wide association study identifies gender-specific loci influencing pediatric aBMD and BMC at the distal radius. Hum Mol Genet, 24(17), 5053-5059. https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddv210 

  11. Zemel, B. S., Pipan, M., Stallings, V. A., Hall, W., Schadt, K., Freedman, D. S., & Thorpe, P. (2015). Growth Charts for Children With Down Syndrome in the United States. Pediatrics, 136(5), e1204-1211. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-1652 

  12. Kelly, A., Winer, K. K., Kalkwarf, H., Oberfield, S. E., Lappe, J., Gilsanz, V., & Zemel, B. S. (2014). Age-based reference ranges for annual height velocity in US children [Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural]. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 99(6), 2104-2112. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2013-4455 

  13. Gilsanz, V., Chalfant, J., Kalkwarf, H., Zemel, B., Lappe, J., Oberfield, S., Shepherd, J., Wren, T., & Winer, K. (2011). Age at onset of puberty predicts bone mass in young adulthood. J Pediatr, 158(1), 100-105, 105 e101-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2010.06.054 

  14. Zemel, B. S., Kalkwarf, H. J., Gilsanz, V., Lappe, J. M., Oberfield, S., Shepherd, J. A., Frederick, M. M., Huang, X., Lu, M., Mahboubi, S., Hangartner, T., & Winer, K. K. (2011). Revised reference curves for bone mineral content and areal bone mineral density according to age and sex for black and non-black children: results of the bone mineral density in childhood study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 96(10), 3160-3169. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2011-1111

Research Expertise

  • Growth

  • Body Composition

  • Bone Density

  • Dietary Intake