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Just one more reason to serve that garbanzo spread at your next baby

shower.

 

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Trish

 

 

Science News Online

 

Week of July 15, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 3

 

In utero factors shape responses to stress, sugar

 

Ben Harder

 

From Boston, at a meeting of the Endocrine Society

 

Abnormal conditions during pregnancy can lead in unexpected ways to

physiological problems in children once they reach adulthood, two new

studies suggest.

 

In the 1960s, British obstetricians encouraged pregnant women to eat

a meat-heavy, low-carbohydrate diet. At the time, it was thought that

this diet might prevent preeclampsia, a complication of pregnancy

that limits the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus.

 

Hundreds of mothers' meticulous records, preserved by one such

obstetrician in Motherwell, Scotland, contain detailed data about

what kinds and quantities of food they ate during pregnancy.

 

Rebecca M. Reynolds of the University of Edinburgh and her colleagues

tracked down dozens of " Motherwell babies " who were born in 1967 and

1968 and are now in their late 30s. Eighty-six of them volunteered to

undergo stress testing, in which they did arithmetic and dealt with a

staged, confrontational interview.

 

Researchers measured blood pressure, heart rate, and blood and sputum

concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol before and after each

test. They then compared those data with the recorded dietary

information.

 

Stress responses were most exaggerated in the children of women who,

during pregnancy, had made the most extreme shifts toward a

meat-heavy diet. That shows that a mother's " unbalanced " diet can

have adverse, lifelong effects on her children, Reynolds says.

 

In a separate study, J. Nina Ham of the Children's Hospital of

Philadelphia and her colleagues conclude that babies born to mothers

with preeclampsia may be at risk of diabetes even if they are of

normal weight at birth. Low birth weight, which is sometimes a

consequence of preeclampsia, is linked to diabetes risk in people.

 

The researchers simulated preeclampsia in mice by placing pregnant

animals in a low-oxygen chamber. The pregnancies appeared normal, as

did the newborn mice, Ham says. But, she adds, " even though their

birth weight was normal, these mice did get diabetes as they got

older. "

 

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References:

 

Ham, J.N., et al. 2006. Gestational hypoxia in mice leads to insulin

secretory defects in adulthood (Abstract P2-164). Endocrine Society

meeting. June 24-27. Boston. Abstract.

 

Reynolds, R.M., et al. 2006. Maternal consumption of a high-meat,

low-carbohydrate diet in late human pregnancy programmes cortisol

responses to stress testing in adulthood (Abstract P1-53). Endocrine

Society meeting. June 24-27. Boston. Abstract.

 

Sources:

 

J. Nina Ham

Division of Endocrinology / Diabetes

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

34th St. and Civic Center Boulevard

Philadelphia, PA 19104-4399

 

Rebecca M. Reynolds

 

Endocrinology Unit

Queen's Medical Research Institute

University of Edinburgh

47 Little France Crescent

Edinburgh, EH16 4TJ

Scotland

 

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060715/note17.asp

 

From Science News, Vol. 170, No. 3, July 15, 2006, p. 46.

 

Copyright © 2006 Science Service. All rights reserved.

 

 

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