Diabetes and obesity: the importance of pre-and postnatal nutrition

20/10/05 Could it be that obesity and type 2 diabetes have their origins in how well babies are fed - first in the womb and then in the high chair? Research presented at the Canadian Diabetes Association & the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism 9th Annual Professional Conference, asked the interesting question.

Research from the UK is indicating that when animals receive poor nutrition in the womb, they tend to be better able to withstand poor nutrition as they grow up. This "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis proposes that poor fetal nutrition causes the relative redistribution of nutrients within the fetus, such that the development of certain organs, including the brain, are protected in preference to other organs, and that the endocrine and metabolic characteristics of the developing fetus are altered in such a way that the baby's ability to survive poor nutrition outside the womb is actually enhanced.

Conversely, researchers have also discovered that those animals poorly fed in the womb that were subsequently fed a normal diet were more susceptible to obesity and experienced reduced longevity. The combination of early growth restriction plus diet-induced obesity in the adult led to the development of the major features of the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of disorders that include blood pressure, high insulin levels and excess body weight that may predispose people for diabetes.