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Maternal obesity and high-fat diet program offspring metabolic syndrome

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Objective

We determined the potential programming effects of maternal obesity and high-fat (HF) diet during pregnancy and/or lactation on offspring metabolic syndrome.

Study Design

A rat model of maternal obesity was created using an HF diet prior to and throughout pregnancy and lactation. At birth, pups were cross-fostered, thereby generating 4 paradigms of maternal diets during pregnancy/lactation: (1) control (Con) diet during pregnancy and lactation (Con/Con), (2) HF during pregnancy and lactation (HF/HF), (3) HF during pregnancy alone (HF/Con), and (4) HF during lactation alone (Con/HF).

Results

Maternal phenotype during pregnancy and the end of lactation evidenced markedly elevated body fat and plasma corticosterone levels in HF dams. In the offspring, the maternal HF diet during pregnancy alone programmed increased offspring adiposity, although with normal body weight, whereas the maternal HF diet during lactation increased both body weight and adiposity. Metabolic disturbances, particularly that of hyperglycemia, were apparent in all groups exposed to the maternal HF diet (during pregnancy and/or lactation), although differences were apparent in the manifestation of insulin resistant vs insulin-deficient phenotypes. Elevated systolic blood pressure was manifest in all groups, implying that exposure to an obese/HF environment is disadvantageous for offspring health, regardless of pregnancy or lactation periods. Nonetheless, the underlying mechanism may differ because offspring that experienced in utero HF exposure had increased corticosterone levels.

Conclusion

Maternal obesity/HF diet has a marked impact on offspring body composition and the risk of metabolic syndrome was dependent on the period of exposure during pregnancy and/or lactation.

Section snippets

Maternal diet and studies

A rat model of maternal obesity was created using a HF diet prior to and through pregnancy and lactation was utilized. Studies were approved by the Animal Research Committee of Harbor-UCLA Medical Research and Education Institute and were in accordance with the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Care and National Institutes of Health guidelines.

Sprague Dawley rats (Charles River Laboratories, Inc, Hollister, CA) were housed in a facility with constant temperature and humidity

Pregnancy

Maternal body weight was increased at the initiation of pregnancy as per the experimental model. Both HF and Con dams gained nearly identical amounts of weight during the pregnancy (Figure 1, A). However, there were marked differences immediately following delivery because Con dams experienced a significantly greater weight loss from pregnancy day e20 to postnatal day one (100 ± vs 40 g; Figure 1, B). Among the 4 lactation groups, 3 of the groups demonstrated a similar maternal weight change

Comment

The results of the present study demonstrate a marked impact of maternal obesity/HF diet on offspring body composition and the risk of metabolic syndrome. Importantly, differential effects on offspring phenotype were observed dependent on whether exposure to maternal obesity occurred during pregnancy, during lactation, or both the pregnancy and lactation periods.

Although HF dams were significantly heavier at conception and throughout pregnancy, both HF and Con dams gained similar amounts of

Acknowledgments

We thank Stacy Behare and Linda Day for technical assistance.

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    This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants R01DK081756 and R01HD054751.

    The authors report no conflict of interest.

    Cite this article as: Desai M, Jellyman JK, Han G, et al. Maternal obesity and high-fat diet program offspring metabolic syndrome. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2014;211:237.e1-13.

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