Researchers Explore Influence of Overweight Mothers on Obesity in Subsequent Generations
By Hugh C. McBride
Researchers with the Baylor (Texas) College of Medicine have found that the prevalence of overweight mothers giving birth to overweight babies may result in "an amplification of obesity across generations."
According to a July 16 article on the ScienceDaily website, Baylor researchers who studied multiple generations of increasingly overweight mice found that genetic alterations related to maternal obesity contributed to higher weights in successive generations, regardless of diet.
"Why is everyone getting heavier and heavier?" asked Dr. Robert A. Waterland, the study's lead researcher. "One hypothesis is that maternal obesity before and during pregnancy affects the establishment of body weight regulatory mechanisms in her baby. Maternal obesity could promote obesity in the next generation."
The ScienceDaily article also quoted Waterland as comparing current advances in the field of genetics and obesity with the efforts of cancer researchers decades ago.
"Twenty years ago, it was proposed that just as genetic mutations can cause cancer, so too might aberrant epigenetic marks - so-called 'epimutations.'" Waterland said. "That idea is now largely accepted and the field of cancer epigenetics is very active. I would make the same statement for obesity. We are on the cusp of understanding that," he said.
"Epigenetics" refers to the theory that environmental influences can prompt genes to react in different ways, though the genes themselves remain structurally the same. This concept may explain why individuals with similar genetic profiles do not develop identical health disorders - for example, why some who are exposed to certain substances develop cancers, while others remain disease-free.A July 16 article on the BBC News website addressed the application of epigenetics to obesity research by noting that "while nothing can change our genes themselves, there is evidence that the womb environment can change the way our genes work."
The Baylor study was published in the July 15, 2008, edition of the International Journal of Obesity.
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