Abstract
Exercise during pregnancy may have long-lasting effects on offspring health. Musculoskeletal growth and development, metabolism, and later-life disease risk can all be impacted by the maternal environment during pregnancy. The skeleton influences glucose handling through the actions of the bone-derived hormone osteocalcin. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of moderate maternal exercise during pregnancy on the bone and body composition of the offspring in adult life, and to investigate the role of osteocalcin in these effects. Groups of pregnant Wistar rats either performed bipedal standing exercise to obtain food/water throughout gestation but not lactation, or were fed conventionally. Litters were reduced to 8/dam and pups were raised to maturity under control conditions. Whole body dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, and ex vivo peripheral quantitative computed tomography scans of the right tibia were performed. At study termination blood and tissue samples were collected. Serum concentrations of fully and undercarboxylated osteocalcin were measured, and the relative expression levels of osteocalcin, insulin receptor, Forkhead box transcription factor O1, and osteotesticular protein tyrosine phosphatase mRNA were quantified. Body mass did not differ between the offspring of exercised and control dams, but the male offspring of exercised dams had a greater % fat and lower % lean than controls (p=0.001 and p=0.0008, respectively). At the mid-tibial diaphysis, offspring of exercised dams had a lower volumetric bone mineral density than controls (p=0.01) and in the male offspring of exercised dams the bone: muscle relationship was fundamentally altered. Serum concentrations of undercarboxylated osteocalcin were significantly greater in the male offspring of exercised dams than in controls (p=0.02); however, the relative expression of the measured genes did not differ between groups. These results suggest that moderate exercise during pregnancy can result in lasting changes to the musculoskeletal system and adiposity in offspring, in a sex-specific manner.
Highlights
The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) paradigm suggests that the environment to which an organism is exposed during prenatal development and early life can have lasting health consequences [1]
Sex differences in programming effects have been demonstrated previously in both humans and animal models [27], and may be mediated by the expression of placental genes that change in response to environmental influences in both a gender- and timing-dependent manner [28]
The differences in the percentages of lean and fatty tissue in the male DAMEX and DAMCON offspring were not significant at the initial Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan performed at 114–118 days of age, but were highly significant by 187–193 days of age
Summary
The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) paradigm suggests that the environment to which an organism is exposed during prenatal development and early life can have lasting health consequences [1]. Mothers who begin a moderate exercise program in early pregnancy will have larger babies [5], while those who continue rigorous exercise throughout pregnancy have thinner, lighter offspring [6]. Whether these effects on birth size result in laterlife health effects is not yet known, as no data are currently available on the effects of exercise during pregnancy on human offspring during adulthood. The results of studies that investigated the effects of exercise during pregnancy on childhood outcomes suggest that the children of exercising mothers are cognitively advanced relative to controls and at 5 years old are slightly lighter than, but otherwise similar to, controls in terms of physical development [7,8,9]
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