Researchers Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston (US) have shown that umbilical cells children of obese mothers or overweight show that altering the expression of key genes that regulate energy and cellular metabolism, compared to similar cells babies of obese mothers not.
Based on the results, Elvira Isganaitis, pediatric endocrine Joslin Diabetes Center and author of the study, added that babies of obese mothers had significantly higher levels of many lipids are known to be metabolically harmful as saturated fatty acids.
This may be because fat tissues of obese mothers can pass fatty acids into the fetal blood and create a kind of fuel surcharge in the embryo, “says Elvira Isganaitis, pediatric endocrine Joslin Diabetes Center and author of the study .
The research results published in the International Journal of Obesity, further suggest that the increased risk of obesity can be increased with increased levels of certain lipids (fats and other substances that are not soluble in water) in maternal blood it flows through the umbilical cord.
“This may be because the fat tissue of obese mothers can pass fatty acids into the fetal blood and create a kind of fuel surcharge” in the embryo, he says.
To conduct the research, scientists have subjected under test 24 women without diabetes overweight and obese (with a higher body mass index of 25 before pregnancy) and 13 women who were not overweight during pregnancy, and analyzed the umbilical cords after women give birth, specifically collected umbilical vein cells that carries oxygen and other nutrients from the placenta to the embryo.
To Isganaitis addition to mothers, health professionals could also monitor growth patterns and nutrition of children at risk of obesity, both in the first two years of life, and afterwards.
