Early life programming in mice by maternal overnutrition: mechanistic insights and interventional approaches

Developmental Programming in Response to Maternal Overnutrition

Metabolic disorders have seen an increased prevalence in recent years in developed as well as developing countries. While it is clear lifestyle choices and habits have contributed to this epidemic, mounting evidence suggests the nutritional milieu during critical stages of development in early life can "program" individuals to develop the metabolic syndrome later in life. Extensive epidemiologi...

Post-weaning diet determines metabolic risk in mice exposed to overnutrition in early life

BACKGROUND Maternal overnutrition during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of obesity and cardiometabolic disease in the offspring; a phenomenon attributed to 'developmental programming'. The post-weaning development of obesity may associate with exacerbation of the programmed metabolic phenotype. In mice, we have previously shown that exposure to maternal overnutrition causes incr...

Adult-onset obesity induced by early life overnutrition could be reversed by moderate caloric restriction.

Overnutrition during the suckling period (small litter, SL) results in the development of adult-onset obesity. Our aim was to investigate whether two levels of caloric restriction (CR) in the early postweaning period can reverse obese phenotype in SL rats. The normal litter (NL) had 12 pups/dam and SL had 3 male pups/dam from the postnatal day 3 until day 21. After weaning, rats consumed lab ch...

Fetal programming by maternal stress: Insights from a conflict perspective

Fetal programming by maternal stress: Insights from a conflict perspective.

Maternal stress during pregnancy has pervasive effects on the offspring's physiology and behavior, including the development of anxious, reactive temperament and increased stress responsivity. These outcomes can be seen as the result of adaptive developmental plasticity: maternal stress hormones carry useful information about the state of the external world, which can be used by the developing ...