Impact of Maternal Food Restriction on Cold-Induced Thermogenesis in the Offspring

Abstract

Food restriction imposed during pregnancy usually leads to many alterations in the development of the conceptus. Some of these alterations can be reverted after birth by adequate nutritional rehabilitation, while there are others which are permanent. The aim of this article is to study the influence of maternal food restriction on offspring thermoregulation. Offspring of dams with food restriction during pregnancy (50%) were fed ad libitum after weaning. Rectal temperature was measured every 15 days from weaning to the 90th day of life. From the 60th to the 90th day the animals were either acclimated at 25 or 5°C. On the 90th day the animals were killed and their carcasses were processed for energy balance analysis and body composition determination. The results showed that animals from food-restricted mothers were not able to maintain body temperature for a longer period of time than the pups from control dams. Energy balance parameters and body composition did not show significant differences between rats from control and food-restriction mothers at the same environmental temperature. Thus, the results suggest that intrauterine food restriction may delay the development of the hypothalamus-thyroid axis which, in turn, may affect brown adipose tissue development leading to inefficient thermoregulation during neonatal life.

Paradoxical Sleep Deprivation and Sleep Recovery: Effects on the Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal Axis Activity, Energy Balance and Body Composition of Rats

“…It is interesting that plasma corticosterone concentrations remained somewhat elevated even after 4 days of sleep recovery, which could, at least in part, explain the maintenance of altered body composition. Similar alterations in body composition are described for cold-acclimated animals, in which fat deposits are mobilised to compensate for cold-induced thermogenesis (32), resulting in diminished fat content and increased water percentage in the carcass, as previously described by Le Blanc et al (33).…”

Intrauterine food restriction alters the expression of uncoupling proteins in brown adipose tissue of rat newborns

“…The present study showed that the offspring of food-restricted dams exhibited lower body weight than those of control dams. These results replicate previous findings from our group (Luz and Griggio, 1996;Griggio et al, 1997;Luz et al, 2003), and suggest that the mother transfers part of her nutritional deficit to the offspring in order to keep survival.…”

“…Previous study from our laboratory has shown that the offspring of food-restricted mothers exhibits difficulty in maintaining their body temperature over a longer period of time after birth, but after adjusting their thermoregulatory mechanisms they are able to maintain body temperature even in cold environment (Luz et al, 2003).…”

The joint effect of maternal malnutrition and cold weather on neonatal mortality in nineteenth-century Venice: An assessment of the hypothermia hypothesis

“…Fetal adipose tissue deposition occurs mostly during the last trimester of gestation, over the period of maximal fetal and placental growth, and depends heavily on nutritional constraints. Unlike other fetal organs, which are unaffected by nutritional restriction, fat mass can be significantly altered by changes in maternal and fetal nutrition (Budge et al 2003;Luz et al 2003;Symonds et al 2003Symonds et al , 2004Larciprete et al 2005).…”