High-Fat Diet during Pregnancy may Increase Risk of Obese Offspring

You know that saying "You are what you eat?" Well, turns out when you're pregnant, it also counts for your baby.

According to researchers from the Yale School of Medicine and the University of Cologne, mothers who put high-fat food in their bodies during pregnancy increased the risk of having overweight or obese children. It simply isn't just genetics. In fact, their findings showed that pregnant rats that ate a high-fat diet actually increased the risk of lifelong obesity and other related metabolic disorders for their offspring, according to a study,

"Our study suggests that expecting mothers can have major impact on the long-term metabolic health of their children by properly controlling nutrition during this critical developmental period of the offspring," said the study's co-lead author Tamas Horvath, the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research and chair of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine, via a press release.

The researchers used mouse models to study the effects of a high-fat diet on offspring. They found that when pregnant rats ate a high-fat diet during lactation, their offspring was more likely to have abnormal neuronal circuits in their hypothalamus--a region of the brain that's primarily responsible for metabolism regulation. Rats feeding on a high-fat diet also typically showed signs of an abnormal glucose metabolism.

Though the study was conducted on rat models, researchers believe that the findings could carry through to humans most likely during the third trimester--a critical period for newborn formation and a time in which new mothers should be particularly cautious with their diets.

"Mothers can control or even reverse their offsprings predisposition to obesity and resulting diseases by altering their food intake," said Horvath. "Because gestational diabetes frequently manifests during the third trimester, the results could inform more intense screening of mothers for alterations in glucose metabolism."

What do you think?

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Cell.