Abstract
The Thrifty Phenotype Hypothesis proposes that the fetus takes cues from the maternal environment to predict its postnatal environment. A mismatch between the predicted and actual environments precipitates an increased risk of chronic disease. Our objective was to determine if, following a high fat, high sucrose (HFS) diet challenge in adulthood, re-matching offspring to their maternal gestational diet would improve metabolic health more so than if there was no previous exposure to that diet. Animals re-matched to a high prebiotic fiber diet (HF) had lower body weight and adiposity than animals re-matched to a high protein (HP) or control (C) diet and also had increased levels of the satiety hormones GLP-1 and PYY (p < 0.05). Control animals, whether maintained throughout the study on AIN-93M, or continued on HFS rather than reverting back to AIN-93M, did not differ from each other in body weight or adiposity. Overall, the HF diet was associated with the most beneficial metabolic phenotype (body fat, glucose control, satiety hormones). The HP diet, as per our previous work, had detrimental effects on body weight and adiposity. Findings in control rats suggest that the obesogenic potential of the powdered AIN-93 diet warrants investigation.
Highlights
While in utero the fetus is subjected to numerous cues about the environment it will encounter in postnatal life
We have previously shown that prenatal exposure via a maternal diet high in prebiotic fiber (HF) results in decreased weight gain and body fat in the offspring when they are challenged with a high fat, high sucrose diet (HFS) in adulthood [8]
Re-matching to a diet high in prebiotic fiber (HF1) reduced body weight and percent body fat compared to both C1 and HP1
Summary
While in utero the fetus is subjected to numerous cues about the environment it will encounter in postnatal life. More recent evidence shows detrimental effects on appetite regulation and glucose and lipid metabolism in response to nutritional mismatch [2]. This programming effect has often been examined in terms of an adverse maternal environment, such as energy or protein restriction, drug treatment, or a maternal high fat diet which is mismatched in offspring with provision of a control diet or a high energy density diet, either at weaning or in adulthood. Offspring of high fat-diet fed Nutrients 2016, 8, 46; doi:10.3390/nu8010046 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients
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