High Fat Diet During Pregnancy May Affect Children’s Drinking and Drug Habits in Adulthood

Expecting mothers' high-fat and sugary diet might make their children vulnerable to alcohol and drugs in later life, a latest research states.

The researchers compared the dietary habits of pregnant rats eating usual rodent chow and those indulging in food rich in fat and sugar. They then switched pups of these rats for lactation.

 The results showed that the pregnant rats' high-fat diet contained 50 percent fat, 25 percent carbohydrate and 25 percent protein and the diet of the rat with rodent chow was 25 percent fat, 50 percent carbohydrate and 25 percent protein. The pups of rats with rich diet weighed more than the pups of the rats with normal diet.

The offspring of rats with high-fat diet showed more responses to alcohol in adulthood than the offsprings of rats with the normal diet. Also the response of pups who fed on the high sugar and rich diet mothers also showed vulnerability to amphetamine,

"The majority of women in the U.S. at child-bearing age are overweight, and this is most likely due to overeating the tasty, high-fat, high-sugar foods you find everywhere in our society. The rise in prenatal and childhood obesity and the rise in number of youths abusing alcohol and drugs merits looking into all the possible roots of these growing problems," Nicole Avena, PhD, a research neuroscientist with the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute, said.

The pups of rats with high-fat and sugary diet during pregnancy had increased levels of triglycerides, a type of fat found in the bloodstream that increases the risk of heart disease.