Maternal deprivation (MD) during neonatal life has diverse long-term behavioral effects and alters the development of the hippocampus and frontal cortex, with several of these effects being sexually dimorphic. MD animals show a marked reduction in their circulating leptin levels, not only during the MD period, but also several days later (PND 13). A neonatal leptin surge occurs in rodents (begi...

PURPOSE To investigate the effects of the maternal caffeine consumption during pregnancy to adult male testis mice offspring. METHODS Twenty pregnant mice were divided into control group (c) and caffeine group (cf). dams received daily saline or 20 mg/kg of caffeine subcutaneously. Male offspring were monitored daily until 13th week. The testis were used to evaluate both the proliferation (pc...

Maternal caloric restriction during late gestation reduces birth weight, but whether long-term adverse metabolic outcomes of intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) are dependent on either accelerated postnatal growth or exposure to an obesogenic environment after weaning is not established. We induced IUGR in twin-pregnant sheep using a 40% maternal caloric restriction commencing from 110 days...

Article history: Received 23 April 2010 Received in revised form 22 August 2010 Accepted 23 August 2010 The present study aimed to determine the effects of maternal protein restriction on lipid metabolism of piglets at weaning and the associated underlying mechanism employing Meishan pigs as model. Sixteen Meishan sows were assigned to the control group and the maternal protein restriction grou...

Melanocortin-4 receptor (Mc4r)-expressing neurons in the autonomic nervous system, particularly in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH), play an essential role in blood pressure (BP) control. Mc4r-deficient (Mc4rKO) mice are severely obese but lack obesity-related hypertension; they also show a reduced pressor response to salt loading. We have previously reported that lean juve...

A fatty diet during pregnancy in mouse dams causes metabolic abnormalities (similar to metabolic syndrome in humans) in the rodents' offspring. We tested the hypothesis that the offspring of dams fed a high-fat diet during pregnancy and lactation develop metabolic abnormalities and leptin resistance. Pregnant C57BL/6 mice (n = 20) were fed either standard chow (SC; 19% fat) or a high-fat diet (...

BACKGROUND This study was designed to evaluate maternal levels of leptin and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in pregnancy complicated with hypertension and to assess the role of cytokines in predicting the risk of cesarean section. MATERIAL/METHODS This was a cohort study with a prospective follow-up. After proportional sampling procedure, the study included the follow-up of 40 women with hypert...

BACKGROUND Breast milk is known to contain many bioactive hormones and peptides, which can influence infant growth and development. In this context, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of different clinical pregnancy conditions on hormone concentrations in colostrum and mature breast milk. METHODS An observational study was performed with mother-newborn pairs divided into ...

Maternal high-fat (HF) diet has long-term consequences on the metabolic phenotype of the offspring. Here, we determined the effects of postweaning exercise in offspring of rat dams fed HF diet during gestation and lactation. Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were maintained on chow or HF diet throughout gestation and lactation. All pups were weaned onto chow diet on postnatal day (PND) 21. At 4 wk o...

A series of epidemiological, clinical and experimental studies have shown that there are associations between the fetal and neonatal nutritional environment and the amount and distribution of adipose tissue in adult life. This review considers the evidence for these relationships and discusses the potential impact of the prenatal nutritional experience on the development of the endocrine and ne...