Research
Hormonal
Maternal high-fat diet and obesity during pregnancy program offspring leptin resistance and altered adiponectin levels, leading to increased adiposity and insulin resistance in the offspring regardless of postnatal diet.
If your mother had a high-fat diet or obesity during your pregnancy, you may have inherent leptin resistance, making weight management harder. This is not your fault, but it means you may need to be more vigilant with your diet and exercise to overcome this biological predisposition.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Rat offspring exposed to a high-fat maternal diet demonstrated leptin resistance in adulthood regardless of post-weaning diet.
Why this rating
Supported by multiple animal studies (rats, primates) showing consistent leptin resistance.
Source
Epigenetic and developmental influences on the risk of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome
Kelli K. Ryckman et al. · Diabetes Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity · 2015
DOI 10.2147/dmso.s61296
narrative_reviewCited 177×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adverse intrauterine environments, including maternal malnutrition, high-fat diets, and obesity, program the offspring's metabolism to increase the risk of adult metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease through structural, epigenetic, and hormonal changes.Good
- Pregnancy complications such as gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) increase the offspring's risk of adult hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome through epigenetic modifications and endothelial dysfunction.Good
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