Rat Study Alleges Link Between Poor Prenatal Diet, Diabetes in Offspring
The UK’s University of Cambridge has conducted an animal study suggesting that poor diet during pregnancy may lead to an increased risk of offspring developing diabetes later in life. Ionel Sandovici, et al., “Maternal diet and aging alter the epigenetic control of a promoter enhancer interaction at the Hnf4a gene in rat pancreatic islets,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 8, 2011. Researchers exposed female rats to either a normal or low-protein diet during their pregnancies and then collected pancreatic cells from their offspring at ages 3 and 15 months.
Researchers reportedly found that the offspring of rats fed a protein-deficient
diet had a higher rate of type 2 diabetes, according to the study. But they also
discovered that the offsprings’ Hnf4a gene—thought to play a role in pancreas
development and insulin production—was apparently silenced as the rats aged,
a factor that may cause diabetes.
“This study has identified a fundamental mechanism by which diet, during critical periods of development, interacts with the genome to influence long-term health,” assert the study’s authors. “We found that suboptimal nutrition during early life modifies a promoter enhancer interaction at the Hnf4a locus through alternations in histone marks. Our study also provides molecular insight into how diet and aging can interact over the life course to determine gene expression and, consequently, tissue function and disease risk.”
Noting that further research is needed to determine whether high-fat or other imbalanced diets could cause similar outcomes in rats, Cambridge researcher Susan Ozanne told a news source that humans could experience similar mechanisms as those in the diabetes study. “Having a healthy well-balanced diet any time in your life is important for your health, but a healthy well-balanced diet during pregnancy is particularly important because of the impact on the baby long-term and potentially even on the grandchildren as well,” she said. See BBC News, March 7, 2011.
