14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles found in a study conducted on unsuspecting lab mice that moderate caloric restrictions applied to infants with low birth weight prevents them from becoming obese during childhood and adolescence.
Children who weigh below average at birth have been demonstrated in past investigations to be at an increased risk of becoming obese later in life. What this study suggests is that this correlation can be destroyed by imposing moderate restrictions on the amount of calories the infants are fed.
However, the team does not encourage mothers to do this just yet, since these are still early results, which have yet to be tested in humans. Given that mice were used for this study because of similarities between the two types of metabolism, it is very likely that the findings apply to our species as well.
The research group advises mothers of low-birth weight infants to address their pediatricians before committing their offspring to any kind of dietary limitations. The new study provides significant insight into the nature of the modifications fetuses go through in the womb.
If they are met with growth restrictions – which may happen for a variety of reasons – fetuses can suffer important changes in their pancreas, liver and skeletal muscles, all of which are insulin-sensitive organs. While in the womb, these adaptations allow them to make the best of all available resources.
After birth, these changes put the infants at higher risk of developing obesity or diabetes later in life. Additional details of these mechanisms were published in the latest online issue of the journal Diabetes.
“This study shows that if we match the level of caloric consumption after birth to the same level that the growth-restricted baby received in the womb, it results in a lean body type,” expert Dr. Sherin Devaskar explains.
“However, if there is a mismatch where the baby is growth-restricted at birth but exposed to plenty of calories after birth, then that leads to obesity,” adds the expert, who was the lead author of the paper.
“While many trials that include exercise and various drug therapies have tried to reverse the tendency of low birth weight babies becoming obese, we have shown that a dietary intervention during early life can have long lasting effects into childhood, adolescence and adult life,” he goes on to say.
Devaskar holds an appointment as a professor of pediatrics and executive chair of the department of pediatrics at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA. His study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).