Dietary balance during pregnancy is associated with fetal adiposity and fat distribution

Blumfield, Michelle; Hure, Alexis; MacDonald‐Wicks, Lesley; Smith, Roger; Simpson, Stephen J.; Giles, W.B.; Raubenheimer, David; Collins, Clare E.

doi:10.3945/ajcn.111.033241

Cited by 99 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Perinatal programming of the genome based on prenatal and neonatal overfeeding contributes to obesity and diabetes in later life [98]. It is also increasingly appreciated that there is an association between maternal nutrition during pregnancy and intrauterine development of fetal body composition and subsequently FD later in life [99]. More importantly, body composition and adverse FD may be modifiable via nutritional intervention in the mother [99].…”

Section: Epigenetics and Other Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is also increasingly appreciated that there is an association between maternal nutrition during pregnancy and intrauterine development of fetal body composition and subsequently FD later in life [99]. More importantly, body composition and adverse FD may be modifiable via nutritional intervention in the mother [99]. As mentioned above, the strong adipose tissue-specific expression patterns of genes playing a fundamental role in early development were strikingly found to be preserved from one pre-adipocyte to the next over several generations [93,100], implying the existence of yet unknown mechanisms maintaining the expression profiles over time [101].…”

Section: Epigenetics and Other Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The genetics of fat distribution

et al. 2014

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Fat stored in visceral depots makes obese individuals more prone to complications than subcutaneous fat. There is good evidence that body fat distribution (FD) is controlled by genetic factors. WHR, a surrogate measure of FD, shows significant heritability of up to ∼60%, even after adjusting for BMI. Genetic variants have been linked to various forms of altered FD such as lipodystrophies; however, the polygenic background of visceral obesity has only been sparsely investigated in the past. Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for measures of FD revealed numerous loci harbouring genes potentially regulating FD. In addition, genes with fat depot-specific expression patterns (in particular subcutaneous vs visceral adipose tissue) provide plausible candidate genes involved in the regulation of FD. Many of these genes are differentially expressed in various fat compartments and correlate with obesity-related traits, thus further supporting their role as potential mediators of metabolic alterations associated with a distinct FD. Finally, developmental genes may at a very early stage determine specific FD in later life. Indeed, genes such as TBX15 not only manifest differential expression in various fat depots, but also correlate with obesity and related traits. Moreover, recent GWAS identified several polymorphisms in developmental genes (including TBX15, HOXC13, RSPO3 and CPEB4) strongly associated with FD. More accurate methods, including cardiometabolic imaging, for assessment of FD are needed to promote our understanding in this field, where the main focus is now to unravel the yet unknown biological function of these novel 'fat distribution genes'.

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Section: Epigenetics and Other Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Epigenetics and Other Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The genetics of fat distribution

et al. 2014

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“…Maternal nutrition during pregnancy may also affect intrauterine development of body composition. Fetal abdominal fat was highest with low protein maternal diet; and fetal midthigh fat was highest at intermediate protein, high fat, and low carbohydrate diets (45). Maternal hypothyroidism may cause glucose intolerance and may contribute to the increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the offspring in rats (46).…”

Section: Fetal Protein Metabolismmentioning

confidence: 98%

Maternal and Fetal Carbohydrate, Lipid and Protein Metabolisms

Şengül

Dede

2014

Electron J Gen Med

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“…expression of genes, hormone levels, inflammation and the nervous system (1,2). During the last decades there has been increased understanding that the maternal diet directly affects the growing foetus and influences health risks later in life (3)(4)(5)(6). This also includes food-borne harmful components, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet matters, particularly in pregnancy – Results from MoBa studies of maternal diet and pregnancy outcomes

Brantsæter¹,

Haugen²,

Myhre³

et al. 2014

Nor J Epidemiol

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Awareness that maternal diet may influence the outcome of pregnancy as well as the long-term health of mother and child has increased in recent years. A new food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was developed and validated specifically for the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). The MoBa FFQ is a semi-quantitative tool which covers the average intake of food, beverages and dietary supplements during the first 4 to 5 months of pregnancy. It includes questions about intakes of 255 foods and dishes and was used from 2002 onwards. Data assessed by the MoBa FFQ is available for 87,700 pregnancies. Numerous sub-studies have examined associations between dietary factors and health outcomes in MoBa. The aim of this paper is to summarize the results from 19 studies of maternal diet and pregnancy outcomes, which is the complete collection of studies based on the MoBa FFQ and published before September 2014. The overall research question is whether maternal diet -from single substances to dietary patterns -matters for pregnancy outcome. The pregnancy outcomes studied till now include birth size measures, infants being small and large for gestational age, pregnancy duration, preterm delivery, preeclampsia, as well as maternal gestational weight gain and postpartum weight retention. As a whole, the results from these studies corroborate that the current dietary recommendations to pregnant women are sound and that maternal diet during pregnancy is likely to contribute to reduce the risk of pregnancy complications including preterm birth, preeclampsia, and reduced foetal growth. The results provide supporting evidence for recommending pregnant women to consume vegetables, fruit, whole grain, fish, dairy, and water regularly and lower the intake of sugar sweetened beverages, processed meat products and salty snacks. The results showing negative impact of even low levels of environmental contaminants support the precautionary advice on consumption of foods containing these. New findings are that particularly lean fish explained the positive association between seafood intake and foetal growth, and the indications of a protective effect of probiotic and antimicrobial foods on pregnancy outcomes. This points to the importance of diet composition for a healthy gut flora and the body's immune response. Although these studies are observational and cannot infer causality, the results identify diet as an important modifiable lifestyle factor, suggesting that healthy eating, defined as following the official recommendations, is particularly important in pregnancy.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Dietary balance during pregnancy is associated with fetal adiposity and fat distribution

Abstract: Fetal body composition may be modifiable via nutritional intervention in the mother and thus may play an important role in influencing the offspring's risk of future disease.

Cited by 99 publications

References 42 publications

The genetics of fat distribution

The genetics of fat distribution

Maternal and Fetal Carbohydrate, Lipid and Protein Metabolisms

Diet matters, particularly in pregnancy – Results from MoBa studies of maternal diet and pregnancy outcomes

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