Does maternal obesity have transgenerational effects on the cardiovascular health of offspring? Listen as Deputy Editor Merry Lindsey (University of Nebraska Medical Center) interviews authors Kelle Moley and Abhinav Diwan (both at Washington University in St. Louis), along with content expert Linda May (East Carolina University) about the unique study by Ferey and colleagues. In this elegantly designed study, the authors fed female C57 black mice a high fat-high sucrose diet for 9 weeks before mating with male mice on a normal diet. The female mice remained on the high fat-high sucrose diet for the duration of their pregnancies, and after birth, pups were weaned to a normal diet. Ferey et al showed that the offspring, despite not being obese, demonstrated cardiac mitochondrial abnormalities and reduced oxygen consumption. In addition, increased left ventricular mass persisted three generations. What are the potential public health implications of this work? Listen now.

 

Jeremie L. A. Ferey, Anna L. Boudoures, Michaela Reid, Andrea Drury, Suzanne Scheaffer, Zeel Modi, Attila Kovacs, Terri Pietka, Brian J. DeBosch, Michael D. Thompson, Abhinav Diwan, and Kelle H. Moley A maternal high-fat, high-sucrose diet induces transgenerational cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction independently of maternal mitochondrial inheritance Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published May 2, 2019. DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00013.2019