More Concern Over Maternal Obesity

Researchers know that obese pregnant women and their babies are at greater risk of pregnancy complications. We talked about that last month (Get to Your Ideal Weight Before Conception), but new research shows that maternal weight may affect babies throughout their lives in many ways.

“If there ever was a maternal hex, obesity might be it,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “and as it turns out, even after the weight comes off, the biggest loser isn’t a mother, but her child.”

The Duke University study, involving rats, revealed that maternal obesity causes cellular programming in the womb that predisposes kids to inflammation-related disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and more. Researchers believe that the predisposition for the disorders remains, even when children aren’t obese themselves.

Staci D. Bilbo, Ph.D., co-author of the study, said that the hope is that the findings will lead to treatments for obesity-associated problems via identification of targets within the immune system. She added that the research teams hopes that their findings will help mothers consider the consequences of their food choices, “not only for their own health, but also for their children’s health, and potentially even their grandchildren’s health.”

For the study, researchers placed rats on one of three diets: low-fat, high-saturated fat, and high-trans fat. The rats followed the diets for four weeks before mating and throughout pregnancy and lactation. Rats born to obese mothers on the high-fat diets had increased immune cell activation and release of cytokines (proteins that regulate inflammation), even on the day after birth. Even after the rats were put on low-fat diets, the undesirable immune response remained.

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