According to an American study, children whose mothers were overweight during pregnancy would be more at risk of suffering from obesity in adulthood.
- A sedentary lifestyle and an unbalanced diet increase the risk of overweight and obesity.
- American researchers have observed a link between overweight mothers during pregnancy and the risk of obesity in their children when they become adults.
- The results of this study could contribute to the development of drugs that modify the brain and decrease the desire to eat unhealthy foods.
Different factors can promote obesity such as a sedentary lifestyle or a diet that is too fatty and unbalanced. Researchers from Rutgers University (United States) recently suggested that babies of mothers who were overweight during pregnancy and breastfeeding would be at greater risk of suffering from obesity in adulthood. The results were published in the journal Molecular Metabolism.
An unbalanced diet during pregnancy would increase the risk of obesity in children
To reach this conclusion, the scientists gave high-fat food to three sister mice and healthy food to three other of their sisters while they were pregnant and nursing their pups. As soon as breastfeeding ended, the researchers examined the fifty or so little ones, which began to weigh more or less heavily depending on the diet of their mothers.
For several weeks, the mice were given ad libitum healthy food. During this first phase of testing, their weights converged, but at healthy levels. They evolved again when researchers gave them free access to a high-fat diet. All mice overfed, however the offspring with overweight mothers overfed even more than the others.
Overweight and pregnancy: an alteration of the developing brain
According to those responsible for the study, this difference in behavior is due to different connections between the hypothalamus and the amygdala, two regions of the brain. This alteration would be caused by the unbalanced diet of mothers during pregnancy and lactation.
“Overeating during pregnancy and lactation appears to be rewiring the brains of developing children and, perhaps, future generations (…) There is still work to be done, as we do not yet fully understand how these changes occur, even in mice. But each experience teaches us a little more, and every little thing we learn about the processes that lead to overeating may unearth a strategy for potential therapies.”, noted Dr. Mark Rossi, lead author of the study and professor of psychiatry at Rutgers’ Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine. For the researchers, their results could contribute to the development of drugs modifying the brain and decreasing the desire to eat unhealthy foods.
