Identical twins do more than just share DNA. They also share a uterus. Could that help explain some of their metabolic similarities? “Fetal overnutrition, evidenced by large birth weight for gestational age, is a powerful contributor to obesity in childhood and later life.” “Maybe it’s what your mother ate?”
A dramatic example from the animal kingdom is the cross between a Shetland pony and a giant draft horse. In any case, the offspring are half pony and half horse, but when carried in the pony’s womb, they are much more becomes smaller. (Thank you pony mothers!) This is probably the same reason why mules (horse mothers and donkey fathers) are larger than hinnies (donkey mothers and horse fathers). A way to test this in humans is to study the size of babies from surrogate mothers after IVF.
Who do you think determines the birth weight of test tube babies the most? Is it the donor mother who provided all the DNA, or is it the surrogate mother who provided the intrauterine environment? When put to the test, the womb won. Incredibly, babies born to obese surrogate mothers even though their biological mothers were thin are more obese than babies born to surrogate mothers whose biological mothers are overweight and thin. Risk may be higher. The researchers “concluded that the environment provided by the human mother is more important than the maternal genetic contribution to birth weight.”
The most convincing data comes from comparing obesity rates in siblings born to the same mother before and after her bariatric surgery. Compared to siblings born when their mothers weighed about 100 pounds less, siblings born when their mothers weighed about 100 pounds less had lower rates of inflammation and metabolic abnormalities, and most importantly, They had a third lower risk of developing severe obesity (35% of siblings born before surgery) and had weight loss affected compared to 11% of those born after. The researchers concluded, “These data highlight how important it is to prevent and effectively treat obesity to prevent further transmission to future generations.”
last. My mother had the same DNA before and after surgery. She inherited the same genes. What effect will her weight during pregnancy have on the weight fate of her children? Even Darwin himself admitted it. “In my opinion, the biggest mistake I made was not putting enough emphasis on the direct effects of the environment, independent of natural selection, namely food.” We have elucidated the mechanism by which this occurs, epigenetics.
Epigenetics, meaning “beyond genetics,” layers an additional level of information on top of DNA sequences that can be influenced by the environment as well as be passed on to children. . This is thought to explain the “developmental programming” that can occur in the womb, depending on the weight of the mother and even the grandmother. Because all the eggs in a young daughter’s ovaries are already formed before birth, the mother’s weight status during pregnancy may also affect the risk of obesity in her grandchildren. In any case, you can imagine that this could lead to a vicious intergenerational cycle where obesity begets obesity.
Is there anything I can do? Breastfed infants may have a lower risk of later obesity, but as you can see, that effect may be due to growth factors caused by exposure to excess protein in infant formula. therefore, its effects may be limited to infants who are exclusively breastfed. It’s below and at 3:51 of my video. However, the data on breastfeeding is controversial and suspected of ‘white hat bias’. It is a concern that public health researchers will unfairly shelve research results that do not fit some goal for the greater good. (In this case, it would be preferable to publish breastfeeding studies that show more positive results.) But, of course, that criticism comes from someone who works for an infant formula company. No matter how you look at it, her breasts are the best. However, its role in the childhood obesity epidemic probably remains uncertain.
Prevention may be the key. Considering the epigenetic influence of maternal weight during pregnancy, a symposium of experts in pediatric nutrition concluded that “pregnancy planning that includes advance optimization of maternal weight and metabolic status is not a cure for childhood obesity. “This is a safe way to start prevention.” Easier said than done, but overweight mothers-to-be can take comfort in the fact that even mothers who gave birth to children at one-third the risk remained obese on average after losing weight in surgical studies Maybe. Losing weight before pregnancy is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
What triggered the entire obesity epidemic in the first place? There are many factors. We covered many of them in our 11-video series on infectious diseases in the related articles below.
We are also what our mothers ate in a different way. Check out:
