Obesity and diabetes in pregnancy may lead to consequences in children

Children of women who were obese or had diabetes during pregnancy developed certain epigenetic alterations that predisposed them to suffer from diseases such as diabetes obesity and the cardiovascular problems that resulted from them according to research conducted by paediatricians at the Hospital General de Valencia This risk not only exists during childhood and adolescence but is also maintained in later stages of lifeThe study published in Cardiovascular Diabetology was carried out by pediatricians from the Hospital General de Valencia which belongs to the Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red CIBER on Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition CIBEROBN the University of Valencia and the INCLIVA Health Research Institute of Valencia in collaboration with scientists from the Epigenetics and Nanomedicine research group CINNCSIC the University of Oviedo and the CIBER on Rare Diseases CIBERERAccording to Empar Lurbe Principal Investigator of the CIBEROBN Group Pregnancy is a fundamental period in the life of human beings that actively affects the development of offspring and their predisposition to the future appearance of cardiometabolic diseases Disorders such as maternal obesity and gestational diabetes can condition the health of the offspring from infancy to adulthood increasing the risk of comorbidities that reduce quality of life and life expectancyOn the other hand and in the opinion of Mario Fraga of CIBERER another of the coordinators of the study maternal obesity during pregnancy can affect up to 3037 of pregnant women with the resulting repercussions for health systems and their public health policies However beyond the epidemiological evidence the molecular causes responsible for these negative effects on the health of the offspring are unknownThe study published in the scientific journal Cardiovascular Diabetology describes epigenetic alterations in the offspring beyond birth associated with the maternal metabolic condition during gestation These chemical modifications influence gene regulation and their alteration is behind the development of multiple diseases of great social impact such as obesityTo reach these conclusions an analysis was performed in a pediatric cohort of children born to mothers with obesity or obesity with gestational diabetes One of the greatest strengths of the study is the longitudinal followup which has been carried out throughout the first year of life in the Pediatrics Department of the Hospital General de Valencia and which has made it possible to clarify the molecular traces by which mothers are able to influence the genome of their offspring continuously over timeThe researchers explain how this study represents a new example of how the environment interacts with our genes In this case the results indicate that the health status and metabolic condition of the pregnant mother can persistently condition the health status of the offspring which may have important implications for public health issuesThis work constitutes the first evidence that the intrauterine environment and more specifically obesity and gestational diabetes are capable of persistently reprogramming the methylation patterns of offspring beyond birthThe alterations involve genes that are part of regulatory pathways of fatty acid metabolism cardiovascular signaling or mitochondrial bioenergetics crucial processes in obesity and diabetes mellitus Being able to detect these alterations in peripheral blood reinforces the idea that maternal metabolism has systemic effects on child developmentThis research exemplifies the great value of collaboration between hospital clinical research and basic research and how the work of multidisciplinary teams makes it possible to achieve potentially useful results for societyEmpar Lurbe Principal Investigator of the CIBEROBN Group and Mario Fraga of the CIBERER responsible for the study highlight the relevance of the CIBER as a key tool for close collaboration between clinical and basic researchers which in this case has made it possible to identify molecular alterations in newborns that depend on the metabolic state of the mother and which therefore can help to design prevention strategies that result in improving the health status of the population in generalRead More Healthy diet is now linked with greater physical fitness in middleaged adultsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever