Reducing the amount of food consumed in the early stages of pregnancy impairs the development of the fetal brain, scientists from the University of Texas Health Science Center (USA) have shown in a study conducted on baboons. The information is provided by the Eurekalert website.
Researchers found that female baboons reduced the diet of female baboons by 30 percent in the first half of pregnancy. it leads to a reduction in the formation of connections between cells, a reduction in the number of cell divisions and the concentration of growth factors in the body of the developing fetus. The first half of pregnancy is a critical time when many neurons and their accompanying cells are formed in the brain.
Peter Nathanielsz, director of the Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Research at the Health Science Center School of Medicine, together with colleagues from the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio and at the Friedrich Schiller University in Germany, studied two groups of pregnant female baboons.
One group ate as much as she wanted during the first half of her pregnancy. The second group of females was on a diet poorer by 30%. – which, according to the authors of the study, corresponds to the level of nutrition of most future mothers in Western countries.
Scientists have found that the quality and quantity of food consumed during pregnancy affects the fetal brain at both the cellular and molecular levels. They found that diet restriction disrupts the activity of hundreds of genes, including key regulators of cell growth and differentiation, indicating that maternal nutrition plays a huge role in fetal development by regulating the basic mechanisms of cellular life.
At the same time – as emphasized by the authors of the study – the results of their research indicate that even a slight restriction of the diet significantly affects the development of the fetus. This is of great importance, among others in the case of teenage pregnancies whose babies are partially depleted of nutrients, as the body must provide them to constantly growing and developing mothers; in pregnancies of mature women (in the last years of the reproductive period), whose arteries are more rigid than in young women, which means that less blood goes to the fetus along with nutrients, and for pregnant women suffering, for example, from high hypertension that reduces the proper functioning of the placenta, and thus the nutrition of the fetus.
Scientists also argue that the effects of a poor diet of pregnant women affect the whole life of toddlers and may most likely contribute to later cognitive and behavioral problems in children. In addition, during fetal development, we gain susceptibility or immunity, e.g. for diabetes, obesity or heart disease. (PAP)
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