Scientists have discovered a previously unknown link between a high fat diet in pregnancy and fatty liver disease in the offspring. The original news release did not clarify that this research was done with mice, so extrapolation to humans is of course tentative.

In a study, published in the journal Hepatology today, researchers at the University of Southampton found that a high fat diet during pregnancy makes offspring more likely to develop a severe form of fatty liver disease when they reach adulthood, in part by negatively influencing enzyme activity in mitochondria and turning on inflammatory pathways.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), or steatohepatitis, is a condition associated with obesity and characterized by the build up of fat in the liver. The condition advances in some people and it is important to understand the factors that contribute to disease progression. Until recently, NAFLD was considered rare and relatively harmless but now it is one of the most common forms of liver disease that may progress to cirrhosis - a serious life threatening chronic liver disease.

Professor Christopher Byrne, with colleagues Dr Felino Cagampang and Dr Kim Bruce, of the University’s School of Medicine and researchers at King’s College London, conducted the study, funded by the BBSRC. Prof Byrne explained: “This research shows that too much saturated fat in a mother’s diet can affect the developing liver of a fetus, making it more susceptible to developing fatty liver disease later in life. An unhealthy saturated fat-enriched diet in the child and young adult compounds the problem further causing a severe form of the fatty liver disease later in adult life.”

The next stage of this research, also funded by the BBSRC, will be to understand, more precisely, the reason why fatty liver disease develops and to intervene to prevent the fatty liver disease from occurring (Courtesy of EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS).

The abstract of the research is available here:

High-fat diet in pregnancy primes steatohepatitis in offspring