High-Fat Diet While Pregnant May Produce Obese Kids

news.yahoo.com — Eating a high-fat diet during pregnancy causes permanent changes in the fetal brain that can result in overeating and obesity early in life, according to a study with rats. The researchers from Rockefeller University in New York City said their finding is an important advance in understanding mechanisms of fetal programming. It also sheds light on the production of new brain cells, helping to explain the dramatic rise of childhood obesity in the United States over the past three decades. "We've shown that short-term exposure to a high-fat diet in utero produces permanent neurons in the fetal brain that later increase the appetite for fat," study senior author Sarah F. Leibowitz, director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurobiology at Rockefeller, said in a university news release. "This work provides the first evidence for a fetal program that links high levels of fat circulating in the mother's blood during pregnancy to the overeating and increased weight gain of offspring after weaning."

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