‘Junk food’ mums more likely to have ‘junk food’ babies
March 24th, 2011 - 11:49 am ICT by ANIWashington, Mar 24 (ANI): A new study involving rats suggests that pregnant and breastfeeding women who indulge in high levels of fat and sugar are likely to have children who indulge in the same types of food.
According to the research, this happens because the high fat and high sugar diet leads to changes in the fetal brain’s reward pathway, altering food preferences.
Not only does this offer insight into the ever-increasing rate of human obesity, but it may also explain why some people easily resist fatty and sugary foods, while others seem hopelessly addicted.
“These results will help us to better help women about diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding for giving their infants the best start in life,” said Beverly Muhlhausler, co-author of the study from the FOODplus Research Centre in the School of Agriculture Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia.
To make this discovery, Muhlhausler and colleagues studied two groups of rats, which during pregnancy and lactation, were either fed standard “rat chow” or a junk food diet made up of a selection of common human foods high in fat and high in sugar.
After the baby mice were weaned, the pups from both groups were allowed to select their own diets from either the same range of junk food or the standard rat chow.
Brains from some of the pups also were collected at different times after birth and measured for the levels of the “feel good” chemicals (dopamine and opioids) and the receptors that these chemicals act upon.
The scientists found that the group of rats whose mothers had eaten the junk food diet had higher levels of the receptor for opioids after they were weaned. This group also chose to eat more of the fatty foods as compared to the pups whose mothers ate the standard rat chow.
This suggests that infants whose mothers eat excessive amounts of high-fat, high-sugar junk foods when pregnant or breastfeeding are likely to have a greater preference for these foods later in life.
The study has been published online in The FASEB Journal. (ANI)
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