Maternal nutrient restriction results in intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) newborns that develop obesity despite normal postweaning diet. The epidemic of metabolic syndrome is attributed to programmed "thrifty phenotype" and exposure to Western diets. We hypothesized that programmed IUGR newborns would demonstrate greater susceptibility to obesity and metabolic abnormalities in response to...

Research with rodents and nonhuman primates suggests that maternal prenatal dietary fat intake is associated with offspring behavioral functioning indicative of risk for psychopathology. The extent to which these findings extend to humans remains unknown. The current study administered the Automated Self-Administered 24 hr Dietary Recall Questionnaire three times in pregnancy (n = 48) to examin...

To begin to understand the contributions of maternal obesity and over-nutrition to human development and the early origins of obesity, we utilized a non-human primate model to investigate the effects of maternal high-fat feeding and obesity on breast milk, maternal and fetal plasma fatty acid composition and fetal hepatic development. While the high-fat diet (HFD) contained equivalent levels of...

Mental and physical health problems are related to early temperament. An important example is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is strongly related to temperament and exacts a heavy toll on children and families, yet has poorly understood etiology. Identifying the early precursors and causal mechanisms for this behavioral problem is of central importance to eventual public ...

Epidemiological data and results from animal studies indicate that imbalances in maternal nutrition impact the expression of metabolic disorders in the offspring. We tested the hypothesis that consumption of excess saturated fats during pregnancy and lactation contributes to adult metabolic dysfunction and that these disturbances can be further influenced by the postweaning diet. Adult male off...

Perinatal maternal consumption of energy dense food increases the risk of obesity in children. This is associated with an overconsumption of palatable food that is consumed for its hedonic property. The underlying mechanism that links perinatal maternal diet and offspring preference for fat is still poorly understood. In this study, we aim at studying the influence of maternal high-fat/high-sug...

PURPOSE Against the hypothesis that high estrogen levels in utero increase the risk of developing breast cancer in later life are data showing that pregnancy estrogen levels are significantly higher in Asian women who have low breast cancer risk than in Caucasian women. We investigated whether maternal dietary intake of genistein or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are typical to ...

Maternal diet is associated with the development of metabolism-related and other non-communicable diseases in offspring. Underlying mechanisms, functional profiles, and molecular markers are only starting to be revealed. Here, we explored the physiological and molecular impact of maternal Western-style diet on the liver of male and female offspring. C57BL/6 dams were exposed to either a low fat...

Growth in utero is largely a reflection of nutrient and oxygen supply to the foetus. We studied the effects of Mn restriction per se, maternal Mn restriction, and postnatal high-fat feeding in modulating body composition, lipid metabolism and adipocyte function in Wistar/NIN (WNIN) rat offspring. Female weanling, WNIN rats received ad libitum for 4 months, a control or Mn-restricted diet and we...

A maternal high-fat (HF) diet during pregnancy can lead to metabolic compromise, such as insulin resistance in adult offspring. Skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction is one mechanism contributing to metabolic impairments in insulin resistant states. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether mitochondrial dysfunction is evident in metabolically compromised offspring born to H...