Transgenerational effects of caloric restriction on appetite: a meta‐analysis

Abstract

Maternal undernutrition can result in significant alterations to the post-natal offspring phenotype, including body size and behaviour. For example, maternal food restriction has been implicated in offspring hyperphagia, potentially causing increased weight gain and fat accumulation. This could result in obesity and other adverse long-term health effects in offspring. We investigated the link between maternal caloric restriction during gestation and offspring appetite by conducting the first meta-analysis on this topic using experimental data from mammalian laboratory models (i.e. rats and mice). We collected 89 effect sizes from 35 studies, together with relevant moderators. Our analysis revealed weak and statistically non-significant overall effect on offspring's appetite. However, we found that lower protein content of restricted diets is associated with higher food intake in female offspring. Importantly, we show that a main source of variation among studies arises from whether, and how, food intake was adjusted for body mass. This probably explains many of the contradictory results in the field. Based on our results, we recommend using allometric scaling of food intake to body mass in future studies.

Long-Term Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Undernutrition on Cannabinoid Receptor-Related Behaviors: Sex and Tissue-Specific Alterations in the mRNA Expression of Cannabinoid Receptors and Lipid Metabolic Regulators

“…In this context, it is plausible in our experimental model that RC offspring did not showed underweight and, therefore, hyperphagia in any stage. It is important to note that when caloric intake is adjusted to body weight the effect of maternal caloric restriction on appetite seems more discrete (Lagisz et al, 2014). One possibility that emerges from our data is that male offspring can increase their body weight by either a reduction of energy expenditure or higher metabolism efficiency.…”

Little appetite for obesity: meta-analysis of the effects of maternal obesogenic diets on offspring food intake and body mass in rodents

“…We applied allometric scaling of food consumption to body mass for each group of animals within included experiments, by dividing mean total daily food intake by the mean body mass raised to the power of 0.75, following Lagisz et al 14 We used Hedges" g, i.e. unbiased standardized mean difference between two groups, as a measure of effect size.…”

“…Different quantification methods could lead to different study conclusions. 14 There are also many other likely sources of heterogeneity among the results, including the diversity of experimental designs (e.g. severity and timing of dietary manipulation), and a range of biological factors (e.g.…”

Transgenerational effects of obesogens and the obesity epidemic

“…It is generally accepted that maternal diet and prenatal nutrition can have transgenerational effects [55,56] but there is dispute about whether these changes are epigenetic and whether epimutations are important for human disease [57,58]. There are multiple epigenetic components (DNA methylation, histone modifications, non-coding RNA, etc) that participate in the modulation of gene expression.…”