Maternal high-fat diet consumption impairs exercise performance in offspring

The aim of the present study was to scrutinise the influence of maternal high-fat diet (mHFD) consumption during gestation and lactation on exercise performance and energy metabolism in male mouse offspring. Female C3H/HeJ mice were fed either a semi-synthetic high-fat diet (HFD; 40 % energy from fat) or a low-fat diet (LFD; 10 % energy from fat) throughout gestation and lactation. After weaning, male offspring of both groups received the LFD. At the age of 7·5 weeks half of the maternal LFD (n 20) and the mHFD (n 21) groups were given access to a running wheel for 28 d as a voluntary exercise training opportunity. We show that mHFD consumption led to a significantly reduced exercise performance (P < 0·05) and training efficiency (P < 0·05) in male offspring. There were no effects of maternal diet on offspring body weight. Lipid and glucose metabolism was disturbed in mHFD offspring, with altered regulation of cluster of differentiation 36 (CD36) (P < 0·001), fatty acid synthase (P < 0·05) and GLUT1 (P < 0·05) gene expression in skeletal muscle. In conclusion, maternal consumption of a HFD is linked to decreased exercise performance and training efficiency in the offspring. We speculate that this may be due to insufficient muscle energy supply during prolonged exercise training. Further, this compromised exercise performance might increase the risk of obesity development in adult life.