…The researchers analyzed cells from the vein within infants’ umbilical cords, and they saw that some of the genes responsible for helping metabolize lipids, and for generating energy in the mitochondria, don’t turn on properly in babies born to obese mothers.  This suggests that the baby’s metabolism may be altered from day one, which could interfere with the ability to deal with nutrient overload, and might make the babies more prone to turning nutrients into stored fat, which can lead to obesity and other metabolic problems later in life.

To understand more about why these metabolism genes weren’t turning on (or expressed) correctly, they analyzed the nutrients and hormonal signals in cord blood. They saw increased levels of insulin, free fatty acids and saturated fatty acids, which is similar to patterns seen in obese or pre-diabetic individuals. (Genes turning on or off is also known as ‘gene expression,’ the phrase more commonly used in the lab).

“By analyzing the composition of the infants’ cord blood, we tried to gain insight into what factors might be triggering the differences in gene expression we observed.  We found increased levels of insulin in cord blood from infants of obese women,” said Elvira Isganaitis, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Investigator and Staff Pediatric Endocrinologist at Joslin Diabetes Center and Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “Insulin does not cross the placenta, so it is definitely coming from the infant (not maternal transfer), and may suggest that infants were being exposed to higher glucose levels in utero, which stimulated their insulin production.”…