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High-fat prenatal diet linked to obesity
Lead author Deborah Sloboda of The Liggins Institute of the University of Auckland in New Zealand said an early first menstrual period is a risk factor for obesity, insulin resistance, teenage depression and breast cancer in adulthood.
Sloboda and colleagues fed pregnant rats a high-fat diet throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding. Control rats received a regular diet of rat chow. After weaning, the offspring ate either regular chow or a high-fat diet.
The study found that the onset of puberty was much earlier in all rats whose mothers had a high-fat diet, compared to the control rodents.
The control rats' offspring that ate a high-fat diet after weaning also entered puberty early. The combination of a high-fat maternal diet -- inside the mother's womb -- and a high-fat diet after birth did not make the early-onset puberty any earlier, Sloboda said.
"This might suggest that the fetal environment in high-fat fed mothers plays a greater role in determining pubertal onset than childhood nutrition," Sloboda said in a statement.
The findings were reported at The Endocrine Society's 90th annual meeting in San Francisco.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
This news arrived on: 06/17/2008
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