Poor Nutrition in Pregnancy May Mean Obese Kids

July 26, 2007 — -- If you're pregnant, what you eat — or don't eat — may determine whether or not your baby faces a lifetime of obesity.

If you happen to be a rat, that is.

Whether or not the data can be applied to humans is a matter of debate. Still, the findings, which appeared online this week on the Web site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer further evidence of a possible link between an unhealthy pregnancy diet and obesity.

"This is the first suggestion that this fundamental biological process operates in mammals, and has major implications for addressing issues, such as [obesity]," said lead study researcher Peter Gluckman in a statement issued Tuesday.

"It changes the way we should think about tackling the obesity epidemic."

In the study, Gluckman and his colleagues at Auckland University's Liggins Institute in New Zealand looked at two groups of female rats — one group whose mothers had been malnourished during pregnancy, and another whose mothers received normal nutrition.

The researchers reported that rats born to the mothers that received inadequate nutrition reacted differently in adulthood to leptin, a hormone believed to signal the body when it has consumed enough.

What this suggests, researchers said, is that if a mother has a poor diet during pregnancy, her offspring may have metabolisms preprogrammed to store and conserve fat — a potentially useful trait if you happen to be born into a life in which food is scarce.

But in a world of cheap, calorie-laden foods, such programming could result in a predilection toward obesity, and the constellation of health problems it entails.

Keith Ayoob, a pediatric nutritionist at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York said that while it is difficult to generalize the findings of the rat study to humans, the research suggests some interesting ideas when it comes to a pregnant woman's diet.

"We always hear about what Mom eats during pregnancy, and how important that is for the baby," Ayoob said. "Now, it appears that ... what mom eats and how much of it she eats may determine how her child will handle nutrients and calories in the future."

Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis and president of the American Dietetic Association, agreed.

"It is always difficult to assume that animal studies will translate to humans," she said. "But the fact that neonatal diet can pre-program future actions is not a surprise when you consider how important diet is to growth."