RESEARCH ARTICLE
Nutrition During Pregnancy and the Effect of Carbohydrates on the Offspring’s Metabolic Profile: In Search of the “Perfect Maternal Diet”
Irene P Tzanetakou1, *, Dimitri P Mikhailidis2, Despina N Perrea1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
First Page: 103
Last Page: 109
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-5-103
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401105010103
Article History:
Received Date: 4/4/2011Revision Received Date: 8/4/2011
Acceptance Date: 11/4/2011
Electronic publication date: 13/5/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Fetal growth and development is primarily dependent upon the nutritional, hormonal and metabolic environment provided by the mother. A wartime famine study in Holland first showed that a low food intake reduces the glucose offered to the fetus and thus produces smaller size infants at birth. Maternal glucose regulation is however affected by numerous factors including physiological changes of pregnancy (e.g. insulin resistance [IR]), pathological conditions (e.g. gestational diabetes mellitus) and maternal nutrition. Maternal glucose is substantially influenced by the type of carbohydrates in the diet through its direct effect on glycemia. The rate at which each carbohydrate raises blood glucose levels after ingestion, can be measured via the dietary glycemic index (GI). Carbohydrate type and the GI of the diet enhance or inhibit abnormal hyperglycemia during pregnancy caused by either pathological conditions or the inability of the mother to cope with the physiological IR of pregnancy. In turn, maternal gestational hyperglycemia may be involved in the pathogenesis of IR, impaired glucose tolerance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, the Metabolic Syndrome and subsequent cardiovascular diseases in adult offspring. A low GI maternal diet has been associated with measurable benefits to the offspring. These include a positive effect on altering maternal blood glucose production, insulinemia and reduced adiposity as well as fetal and placental insulin and glucose regulation, fetal growth, birth weight and offspring adiposity. We review the possible links between dietary carbohydrate in health during pregnancy and the effect of maternal carbohydrate ingestion on programming the offspring’s metabolic profile.
