Abstract
Calcium plays important roles in lipid metabolism and adipogenesis, but whether its status in early life affects later lipid profiles needs to be clarified. Three to four-week old C57BL/6J female mice were fed with three different reproductive diets containing normal, low (insufficient) and high (excessive) calcium concentrations respectively throughout pregnancy and lactation. At postnatal 21 days, the weaning male and female pups from each group were sacrificed for experiments and the remaining were fed with the normal chow diet for 16 weeks. Meanwhile, some of the weaning female pups from maternal low calcium diet group were fed with the normal calcium, low calcium and high calcium mature diets respectively for 8 weeks. Maternal insufficient or excessive calcium status during pregnancy and lactation programmed an abnormal expression of hepatic and adipose genes (PPAR-γ, C/EBP-α, FABP4, Fasn, UCP2, PPAR-α, HMG-Red1, Acc1, and SREBP-1c) in the offspring and this may lead to dyslipidemia and accumulation of hepatic triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) in later life. The effects of maternal calcium status on lipid metabolism were found only in the female adult offspring, but were similar between offspring males and females at postnatal 21 days. Additionally, the dyslipidemia and hepatic lipid accumulation caused by insufficient calcium status in early life may be reversed to some extent by dietary calcium supplementation in later life.
Highlights
IntroductionEpidemiological studies show that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (overweight/obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and hyperglycemia/insulin resistance) has become one of the most important public health problems worldwide during the past several decades
Epidemiological studies show that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome has become one of the most important public health problems worldwide during the past several decades
For the 21-day-old offspring, both in male and female mice, no significant differences were found in body weight, as well as calcium concentrations in plasma and liver among groups with maternal normal calcium (NC), low calcium (LC) and high calcium diet (HC) diets
Summary
Epidemiological studies show that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (overweight/obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and hyperglycemia/insulin resistance) has become one of the most important public health problems worldwide during the past several decades. Major et al found that a low dietary calcium intake led to weight gain by influencing the de novo lipogenesis in adipose tissue which was the early predictor of the obesity[7]. After birth, the formula-feeding infants or breast-feeding infants with calcium supplementation have more calcium intake than the RNI. This imbalance in calcium intake in early life may have detrimental effects on later health. We hypothesized that insufficient or excessive intake of calcium in early life might be a risk factor for dyslipidemia in later life. It was determined whether calcium supplementation to the offspring mice from mothers with low calcium status after weaning could lessen the dyslipidemia in later life
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