Exercise rescues obese mothers' insulin sensitivity, placental hypoxia and male offspring insulin sensitivity.

ABSTRACT: The prevalence of obesity during pregnancy continues to increase at alarming rates. This is concerning as in addition to immediate impacts on maternal wellbeing, obesity during pregnancy has detrimental effects on the long-term health of the offspring through non-genetic mechanisms. A major knowledge gap limiting our capacity to develop intervention strategies is the lack of understanding of the factors in the obese mother that mediate these epigenetic effects on the offspring. We used a mouse model of maternal-diet induced obesity to define predictive correlations between maternal factors and offspring insulin resistance. Maternal hyperinsulinemia (independent of maternal body weight and composition) strongly associated with offspring insulin resistance. To test causality, we implemented

SUBMITTER: Fernandez-Twinn DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5349590 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature