Maternal pea fiber supplementation to a high calorie diet in obese pregnancies protects male offspring from metabolic dysfunction in adulthood

Abstract

We investigated the influence of maternal yellow-pea fiber supplementation in obese pregnancies on offspring metabolic health in adulthood. Sixty newly-weaned female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to either a low-calorie control diet (CON) or high calorie obesogenic diet (HC) for 6-weeks. Obese animals were then fed either the HC diet alone or the HC diet supplemented with yellow-pea fiber (HC + FBR) for an additional 4-weeks prior to breeding and throughout gestation and lactation. On postnatal day (PND) 21, 1 male and 1 female offspring from each dam were weaned onto the CON diet until adulthood (PND 120) for metabolic phenotyping. Adult male, but not female, HC offspring demonstrated increased body weight and feed intake vs CON offspring, however no protection was offered by maternal FBR supplementation. HC male and female adult offspring demonstrated increased serum glucose and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) compared with CON offspring. Maternal FBR supplementation improved glycemic control in male, but not female offspring. Compared with CON offspring, male offspring from HC dams demonstrated marked dyslipidemia (higher serum cholesterol, increased number of TG-rich lipoproteins, and smaller LDL particles) which was largely normalized in offspring from HC + FBR mothers. Male offspring born to obese mothers (HC) had higher hepatic TG, which tended to be lowered (p = 0.07) by maternal FBR supplementation. Supplementation of a maternal high calorie diet with yellow-pea fiber in prepregnancy and throughout gestation and lactation protects male offspring from metabolic dysfunction in the absence of any change in body weight status in adulthood.

Postnatal Consumption of Black Bean Powder Protects against Obesity and Dyslipidemia in Male Adult Rat Offspring from Obese Pregnancies

“…This may be attributed to the limited impact of the intervention on maternal obesity. However, in a similar rat model, we have recently reported that the supplementation of an obesity-inducing maternal diet with yellow pea protein [30] and fiber [29] fractions throughout pregnancy improved the metabolic health of offspring independent of a change in maternal obesity status.…”

“…Thus, the objectives of this study were to assess whether black bean powder (BBP) supplementation to mothers (throughout pre-pregnancy, gestation, lactation) or to pre-programmed male offspring would offer protection against obesity and associated metabolic dysfunction (i.e., dyslipidemia and hepatic steatosis) in adult offspring. We chose to only examine male offspring in this study as we have previously reported that female offspring are largely resistant to the metabolic programming influence of maternal obesity in this model with respect to the study outcomes [29,30].…”