Increased Susceptibility to Metabolic Alterations in Young Adult Females Exposed to Early Malnutrition

Abstract

Early malnutrition during gestation and lactation modifies growth and metabolism permanently. Follow up studies using a nutritional rehabilitation protocol have reported that early malnourished rats exhibit hyperglycemia and/or hyperinsulinemia, suggesting that the effects of early malnutrition are permanent and produce a "programming" effect on metabolism. Deleterious effects have mainly been observed when early-malnutrition is followed by a high-carbohydrate or a high-fat diet.The aim of this study was to evaluate whether following a balanced diet subsequent to malnutrition can deter the expression of metabolic disease and lead rats to exhibit metabolic responses, similar to those of well-nourished controls.Young rats, born from dams malnourished during gestation and lactation with a low protein diet, were provided with a regular balanced chow diet upon weaning. At 90 days of age, the effects of rehabilitation were determined under three different feeding conditions: ad libitum, fasting or fasting-reefed satiated.Early-malnourished rats showed an increased rate of body weight gain. Males under ad libitum conditions showed an elevated concentration of hepatic glycogen and low values of insulin. In the fasting-reefed satiated condition, only early-malnourished females showed an alteration in glucose response and glucagon level, compared with their well-nourished controls.Data indicate that a balanced diet along life after early malnutrition can mask the expression of metabolic disorders and that a metabolic challenges due to a prolonged fasting and reefed state unmask metabolic deficiencies in early-malnourished females.

The effects of dietary fatty acid composition in the post-sucking period on metabolic alterations in adulthood: can ω3 polyunsaturated fatty acids prevent adverse programming outcomes?

“…These data suggest that rats that are overfed during lactation are more susceptible to high-fat stimulation after weaning, and this may lead to abnormal metabolic dysregulation compared with normally fed rats. Such divergent nutritional exposure during early development can reprogram the response to a particular nutritional environment, as reported previously in rat offspring exposed to gestation stress (Tamashiro & Moran 2010) and maternal malnutrition (Minana-Solis & Escobar 2007). By contrast, perinatal mice fed a normal diet are resistant to high-fat diet-induced hyperphagia, obesity, and insulin resistance (Gallou-Kabani et al 2007).…”

Effects of postnatal bromocriptine injection on thyroid function and prolactinemia of rats at adulthood

“…These programming effects, including those on hormonal regulation, were reproduced by experimental studies that were carried out during periods of relevant developmental plasticity, even after birth (Gluckman and Hanson, 2007;Cottrell and Ozanne, 2008). In rodents, significant cognitive and neurological development still occurs postnatally, during the critical period of lactation (de Miñana-Solis and Escobar, 2006). Therefore, it is plausible that changes at this stage of life can cause late-emerging long-lasting physiological modifications that may either guarantee a better adaptation to the prevailing environmental conditions that resulted in the programming effect to begin with or that can also lead to the development of diseases at adulthood if the initial conditions were substantially changed .…”