Australian researchers released their findings: babies born to moms who were considered obese during pregnancy had changes to their hearts through alterations in their thyroid hormone. With the increasing rates of cardiometabolic disease like diabetes and coronary artery disease, our society needs to understand all the factors that go into this epidemic. Recommending adults to eat healthier is a big part of that work, but this study suggests that some risk is hardwired into babies through their mother’s diet during pregnancy.
The study was conducted on baboons and their fetuses. One group was fed a high fat and high sugar diet, while the other was fed a normal and healthier diet. Other studies had indicated that the unhealthy diets could alter pathways in insulin signaling which affected the heart’s development. Since we are born with almost all the heart cells that we will ever have, any damage during gestation could last into adulthood.
In the study, researchers found that the baboon moms with the unhealthy diet altered the levels of the most active form of thyroid hormone, T3. This T3 plays a role in the development of the fetal heart late in gestation. Altered T3 levels lead to a different development pattern for the heart. These changes were evident even when the baby’s birth weight was otherwise normal, despite the changes actually occurring in the heart.
Obviously, helping future moms prepare for pregnancy with health diets even before pregnancy is important. Also obvious is the need to educate current pregnant moms on optimizing their diet. The authors also recommend implementing screening processes for children born to obese moms with poor diets as the children grow up. These children are at higher risk for diabetes and heart disease. Early intervention could lower their rates of severe adverse consequences.
Helping our families and our patients look forward to healthier, more abundant lives in the present generation and the next depends on research like this as well as alerting everyone to this research. We look forward to more opportunities to get the word out and turn back the tide of cardiovascular disease overtaking our world.
Article:
Melanie R. Bertossa, Jack R. T. Darby, Stacey L. Holman, Ashley S. Meakin, Cun Li, Hillary F. Huber, Michael D. Wiese, Peter W. Nathanielsz, Janna L. Morrison. Maternal high fat–high energy diet alters metabolic factors in the non‐human primate fetal heart. The Journal of Physiology, 2024; 602 (17): 4251 DOI: 10.1113/JP286861
Thanks to Science Daily:
University of South Australia. “Babies born to women consuming a high fat, sugary diet at greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in later life.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 September 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/09/240913105336.htm>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
