Nick Norwitz explains how maternal health during pregnancy shapes lifelong disease risk. A mother's sugar intake increases her child's odds of obesity and type 2 diabetes through epigenetic changes. A Western diet in pregnancy predisposes offspring to heart disease and arterial plaque, even if they eat differently later.
As a science communicator, I've been really frustrated by how social media is handling this whole Tylenol debacle. So what I want to try to do here is offer a quick message of unity, something I think we can all agree on, and that is the seeds of health and disease are planted well before birth. I'll give you two non-Tylenol examples. First, sugar intake. Maternal sugar intake has been linked, including in human natural experiments, to increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. This is thought to be mediated through epigenetic mechanisms. Also, experiments including new research out in Nature Cardiovascular Research has shown that a maternal westernized diet can increase risk of heart disease in the offspring, again through epigenetic mechanisms. But even when the offspring was fed the same diet, the maternal diet dictated how much plaque would accumulate in the hearts of the offspring. It's absolutely mind-blowing. So the point here is, yes, the seeds of health and disease are planted well before birth. And this conversation that we're having needs to expand beyond Tylenol to bigger lifestyle factors. So let's continue the conversation. Thanks for listening.
