Reversion from a high‐fat diet to a prenatal normal diet could delay the incidence of insulin resistance induced by postnatal high fat diet in female offspring (1072.2)

Abstract

Many studies have focused on the adverse effects of prenatal high fat diet (HFD) on offspring development, but few studies are aimed on evaluating how prenatal reversion to regular diet (ND) in obese subjects could affect the offspring high fat diet‐induced obesity (DIO). The female obese mice either continued a high fat diet during pregnancy till the end of lactation (HFD group), or switched from HFD to ND for four weeks and continued on ND during pregnancy till the end of lactation (HFD‐ND group). Offspring from both groups were subjected on HFD for 9 weeks after weaning. By the end of the week 9, we found that prenatal HFD‐ND differentially affects the male and female offspring with a postnatal HFD. This is evidenced by slower weight gain, lower weight of the liver, the subcutaneous and the visceral fat in HFD‐ND female offspring compared to the HFD female offspring, but not in HFD‐ND male offspring vs. HFD male offspring. Only HFD‐ND female offspring failed to develop insulin resistance after nine weeks postnatal HFD. This result was not caused by the differential consumption of male and female offspring via evaluating the food consumption. We further found that the female HFD offspring developed inflammation in liver tissue marked by increased macrophage infiltration comparing to the HFD‐ND female offspring. Our results demonstrated that maternal reversion from a HFD to a ND could affect the onset of DIO in female offspring.Grant Funding Source: Supported by the University of North Dakota faculty seed money