How important is maternal nutrition in prepregnancy period and in pregancy period??

How can you die early if your mother fed adequate protein in pregancy period?? Foetal programming of etilogy of diabetes?? Recent studies show that hepatic metabolism and even longevity of a person can be programmed by events during early life.  The hepatic metabolism and even longevity of a person can be programmed by events during early foetal life which is programmed chiefly by maternal nutrition ..

How important is maternal nutrition in prepregnancy period and in pregancy period??

Ans:-Fetal growth and development is understandably dependent upon the nutritional, hormonal and metabolic environment provided by the mother. Any disturbance in this environment can modify early fetal development with possible long-term outcomes as demonstrated by extensive work on ‘programming’. Growth restriction resulting from a deficit in tissue/organ cell number (as measured by tissue DNA content) is irrecoverable. However, when the cell size (or cell protein content) is reduced, the effects on growth may not be permanent.

There is a strong statistical association between these indices of early development and diseases in later life. It has been hypothesized that the processes explaining these associations involve adaptive changes in fetal organ development in response to maternal and fetal malnutrition. These adaptations may permanently alter adult metabolism in a way which is beneficial to survival under continued conditions of malnutrition but detrimental when nutrition is abundant.

• It is presumed that  there is permanent growth retardation in offspring where mother ingested  a low-protein diet.
• (ii)  Permanent and selective changes in organ growth. Essential organs like the brain and lungs are relatively protected from reduction in growth at the expense of visceral organs such as the liver, pancreas, muscle and spleen.
• (iii)  Programming of liver metabolism as reflected by permanent changes in activities of key hepatic enzymes of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis (glucokinase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) in a direction which would potentially bias the liver towards a ‘starved’ setting. We have speculated that these changes could be a result of altered periportal and perivenous regions of the liver which may also affect other aspects of hepatic function.
• (iv)  Deterioration in glucose tolerance with age.
• (v)  An increase in the life span of offspring exposed to maternal protein restriction only during the lactation period, and a decrease in life span when exposed to maternal protein restriction only during gestation.

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