Cargando…

Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment

A marked increase in the frequency of obesity at the population level has resulted in an increasing number of obese women entering pregnancy. The increasing realization of the importance of the fetal environment in relation to chronic disease across the lifespan has focused attention on the role of...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tarantal, Alice F., Berglund, Lars
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011063/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24763115
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6041725
_version_ 1782314763345199104
author Tarantal, Alice F.
Berglund, Lars
author_facet Tarantal, Alice F.
Berglund, Lars
author_sort Tarantal, Alice F.
collection PubMed
description A marked increase in the frequency of obesity at the population level has resulted in an increasing number of obese women entering pregnancy. The increasing realization of the importance of the fetal environment in relation to chronic disease across the lifespan has focused attention on the role of maternal obesity in fetal development. Previous studies have demonstrated that obesity during adolescence and adulthood can be traced back to fetal and early childhood exposures. This review focuses on factors that contribute to early developmental events, such as epigenetic modifications, the potential for an increase in inflammatory burden, early developmental programming changes such as the variable development of white versus brown adipose tissue, and alterations in organ ontogeny. We hypothesize that these mechanisms promote an unfavorable fetal environment and can have a long-standing impact, with early manifestations of chronic disease that can result in an increased demand for future health care. In order to identify appropriate preventive measures, attention needs to be placed both on reducing maternal obesity as well as understanding the molecular, cellular, and epigenetic mechanisms that may be responsible for the prenatal onset of chronic disease.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4011063
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-40110632014-05-06 Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment Tarantal, Alice F. Berglund, Lars Nutrients Review A marked increase in the frequency of obesity at the population level has resulted in an increasing number of obese women entering pregnancy. The increasing realization of the importance of the fetal environment in relation to chronic disease across the lifespan has focused attention on the role of maternal obesity in fetal development. Previous studies have demonstrated that obesity during adolescence and adulthood can be traced back to fetal and early childhood exposures. This review focuses on factors that contribute to early developmental events, such as epigenetic modifications, the potential for an increase in inflammatory burden, early developmental programming changes such as the variable development of white versus brown adipose tissue, and alterations in organ ontogeny. We hypothesize that these mechanisms promote an unfavorable fetal environment and can have a long-standing impact, with early manifestations of chronic disease that can result in an increased demand for future health care. In order to identify appropriate preventive measures, attention needs to be placed both on reducing maternal obesity as well as understanding the molecular, cellular, and epigenetic mechanisms that may be responsible for the prenatal onset of chronic disease. MDPI 2014-04-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4011063/ /pubmed/24763115 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6041725 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Tarantal, Alice F.
Berglund, Lars
Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title_full Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title_fullStr Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title_full_unstemmed Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title_short Obesity and Lifespan Health—Importance of the Fetal Environment
title_sort obesity and lifespan health—importance of the fetal environment
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011063/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24763115
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu6041725
work_keys_str_mv AT tarantalalicef obesityandlifespanhealthimportanceofthefetalenvironment
AT berglundlars obesityandlifespanhealthimportanceofthefetalenvironment