Woman’s Diet Linked to Child’s Puberty

Ivanhoe Newswire
Friday, June 20, 2008; 4:15 AM

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – A woman's diet during pregnancy could have an impact on when her child goes through puberty.
 
A new report from New Zealand finds a high fat diet during pregnancy and while a woman is nursing may cause early puberty in her children. That could lead to obesity when they get older.

The study shows an early first menstrual period – which is often used as a marker for early-onset puberty in girls – is also a risk factor for insulin resistance, teenage depression and breast cancer later in life.

Researchers gave rats a high-fat diet while they were pregnant and breastfeeding. Control rats ate regular rat chow. After weaning from their mother's milk, the offspring ate either regular chow or a high fat diet.

Results show the onset of puberty was much earlier in rats whose mothers had a high fat diet compared with those on a regular diet. Offspring from the control group that ate a high fat diet after weaning also had early puberty. The combination of a high fat diet while inside the womb and a high fat diet after birth did not lead to early-onset puberty any sooner.

"This might suggest that the fetal environment in high fat fed mothers plays a greater role in determining pubertal onset than childhood nutrition," lead author, Deborah Sloboda, Ph.D., University of Auckland in New Zealand, was quoted as saying.

The study also found rats born to mothers on a high fat diet had a higher amount of body fat later in life than controls did, even if they ate a regular diet while they were young. Adult rats that had a maternal high fat diet had alterations in sex hormones, including increased levels of progesterone in females.

SOURCE: The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, June 2-15, 2008

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