22 Fetal overgrowth is common in obese women and is associated with perinatal complications and 23 increased risk for the child to develop metabolic syndrome later in life. Placental nutrient 24 transport capacity has been reported to be increased in obese women giving birth to large infants, 25 however the underlying mechanisms are not well established. Obesity in pregnancy is 26 characterized...

OBJECTIVE Gender plays a role in the development of a number of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and it has been suggested that females may be more insulin resistant in utero. We sought to assess the relationship between infant gender and insulin resistance in a large pregnancy cohort. STUDY DESIGN This is a secondary analysis of a cohort from the ROLO randomized control trial of low GI ...

Maternal obesity has been related to adverse neonatal outcomes and fetal programming. Oxidative stress and adipokines are potential biomarkers in such pregnancies; thus, the measurement of these molecules has been considered critical. Therefore, we developed artificial neural network (ANN) models based on maternal weight status and clinical data to predict reliable maternal blood concentrations...

Methionine, folic acid, betaine and choline interact in the one-carbon metabolism which provides methyl groups for methylation reactions. An optimal intake of these nutrients during pregnancy is required for successful completion of fetal development and evidence is growing that they could be involved in metabolic long-term programming. However, the biological pathways involved in the action of...

Maternal stress exerts long-lasting postnatal growth on offspring, which persist into adulthood. However, the effect of maternal stress on appetizing system has not been widely reported. In this study, we found that maternal immobilization stress (IS) during lactation resulted in low body weight and food intake. Immunohistochemistry showed an increase in stomach ghrelin protein expression. The ...

The mechanisms underlying reduced fetal growth in response to maternal protein restriction are not well established. Maternal levels of insulin, IGF-I, and leptin are decreased in rats fed a low protein (LP) diet. Because these hormones stimulate placental amino acid transporters in vitro, we hypothesized that maternal protein restriction inhibits placental leptin, insulin/IGF-I, and mammalian ...

The early (intrauterine and neonatal) life environment plays an important role in programming the susceptibility in later life to chronic degenerative diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer and osteoporosis.Among other hormones, leptin plays a major role in the regulation of the overall metabolism and has multiple neuroendocrine (adenoand neuro-hypophysis ...

BACKGROUND Large for gestational age infants have an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular and metabolic complications during life. Knowledge of the key predictive factors of neonatal adiposity is required to devise targeted antenatal interventions. Our objective was to determine the fetal metabolic factors that influence regional neonatal adiposity in a cohort of women with previous large ...

BACKGROUND Maternal smoking has been associated with elevated risk of type 2 diabetes among the offspring in adulthood. The mechanisms underlying this fetal "programming" effect remain unclear. The present study sought to explore whether maternal smoking affects metabolic health biomarkers in fetuses/newborns. METHODS In a prospective singleton pregnancy cohort (n = 248), we compared metaboli...