DNA methylation mediates the impact of exposure to prenatal maternal stress on BMI and central adiposity in children at age 13½ years: Project Ice Storm.

ABSTRACT: Prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) in animals and humans predicts obesity and metabolic dysfunction in the offspring. Epigenetic modification of gene function is considered one possible mechanism by which PNMS results in poor outcomes in offspring. Our goal was to determine the role of maternal objective exposure and subjective distress on child BMI and central adiposity at 13½ years of age, and to test the hypothesis that DNA methylation mediates the effect of PNMS on growth. Mothers were pregnant during the January 1998 Quebec ice storm. We assessed their objective exposure and subjective distress in June 1998. At age 13½ their children were weighed and measured (n = 66); a subsample provided blood samples for epigenetic studies (n = 31). Objective and subjective PNMS correlated with centra

SUBMITTER: Cao-Lei L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4623010 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature