High Protein, Low-Carb Diet During Pregnancy Improved Triglycerides, Fat Metabolism In Offspring

Diet found especially beneficial for female offspring

It has been estimated that up to 32 million Americans have adopted the low-carb style of eating, in part because of its quick and dramatic results. Converts often maintain components of low-carb eating long after they’ve officially finished dieting.

Not surprisingly, a growing number of pregnant women now explore ways to continue low-carb routines through gestation, in fact there are several chat rooms devoted to this topic. Though low-carbing during pregnancy has not been extensively researched, a new study points to some positive benefits for the adult offspring of low-carb dieters.

A team of U.K. scientists at the University of Southampton School of Medicine have found that female pups born to mice who were fed a diet high in unsaturated fat and protein, and low in carbohydrates (low-carb/high-fat) during pregnancy and lactation were likely to have lower liver triglyceride levels in adulthood than pups born to mice on the standard chow diet (high-carb/low-fat). The female low-carb/high-fat offspring also had higher amounts of proteins that aid fatty acid oxidation (fat burning) than did the standard diet pups. A similar trend was noted in the male low-carb/high-fat offspring, but the results were not as dramatic.

In humans, maintenance of low triglyceride levels and a good lipid (fat) metabolism is important as these factors can reduce the risk of developing coronary artery disease, a condition that affects millions and kills thousands of Americans each year.

Research highlights:

• Mother mice were assigned either low-carb/high-fat or standard high-carb/low-fat diets approximately six weeks before impregnation. They remained on these diets through pregnancy and nursing.
• The low-carb/high-fat mother mice ate approximately 21 percent less than the high-carb/low-fat mother mice did. The low-carb/high-fat mother mice consumed 57.5 percent fewer carbs, 153 percent more fat and 23 percent more protein than the mice on the standard diet.
• The mothers on the low-carb/high-fat diet did not display differences in body weight in comparison to the standard diet mice.
• All pups were weaned from breast milk onto the same standard high-carb diet into adulthood.
• Importantly, the adult offspring of low-carb/high-fat mothers had reduced liver triglyceride concentration (less than half that of the pups born to mothers on the standard diet), despite being fed the same standard high-carb/low-fat diet post weaning. They also expressed significantly greater levels of the hepatic proteins CD36, CPT-1 and PPARá, which help with fatty acid oxidation.

The results of the study “A high unsaturated fat, high protein and low carbohydrate diet during pregnancy and lactation modulates hepatic lipid metabolism in female adult offspring” will appear as one of 20 research studies on fetal programming (how a mother’s actions affect her offspring) presented in the January 2005 edition of the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology.

The authors of the study are Junlong Zhang, Chunli Wang, and Christopher D. Byrne of the Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Southampton School of Medicine; and Paul L. Terroni, Felino R. A. Cagampang, and Mark Hanson of the Maternal, Fetal and Neonatal Physiology Sub-Division at the University of Southampton’s Princess Anne Hospital. All authors are in the University of Southampton’s Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Division (DOHaD). This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation, the DOHaD Center and the School of Medicine of the University of Southampton.

Abstract:

Whether a high unsaturated fat, high protein (HFP) and low carbohydrate (CHO) diet during gestation has long-lasting beneficial effects on lipid metabolism in the offspring was investigated using a mouse model. Female mice were fed either a standard (CHO-rich) chow diet or a low carbohydrate HFP diet, prior to and during gestation and lactation. All offspring were weaned onto the same chow until adulthood. Although liver cholesterol concentration and fasting plasma TG, cholesterol and free fatty acid concentrations were not affected in either male or female HFP offspring, hepatic triglyceride (TG) concentration was reduced by ~51% (p < 0.05) in the female adult offspring from dams on the HFP diet, compared to females from dams on the chow diet (a trend toward reduced TG concentration was also observed in the male). Furthermore, hepatic protein levels for CD36, carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 (CPT-1) and peroxisomal proliferator activated receptor-á (PPARá) were increased by ~ 46% (p < 0.001), ~52% (p < 0.001) and ~14% (p = 0.035) respectively in the female HFP offspring. Liver TG levels were negatively correlated with protein levels of CD 36 (r = -0.69, p = 0.007), CTP-1 (r = -0.55, p = 0.033) and PPARá (r = -0.57, p = 0.025) in these offspring. In conclusion, a maternal HFP diet during gestation and lactation reduces hepatic TG concentration in female offspring, which is linked with increased protein levels in fatty acid oxidation. Source: The article “A high unsaturated fat, high protein and low carbohydrate diet during pregnancy and lactation modulates hepatic lipid metabolism in female adult offspring” is online in the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, and is scheduled to appear in the January 2005 issue, published by the American Physiological Society. A copy of the abstract is available to the public at www.the-aps.org.