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Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes
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Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes

Published on: June 28, 2024

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Maternal dietary counseling during pregnancy and infant fatty acid profiles

Katri Niinivirta1, Päivi Laakso, Kaisa Linderborg

  • 1The Functional Foods Forum, University of Turku , Turku , Finland .

International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition
|November 15, 2013
PubMed

We aimed to explore whether maternal dietary counseling to increase the intake of unsaturated fatty acids (FA) is reflected in infant FA status. Serum cholesteryl ester (CE) and triacylglycerol (TAG) FA were analyzed from infants of 45 women randomized to receive dietary counseling from the first trimester of pregnancy and 45 control women. Counseling resulted in a higher intake of polyunsaturated FA and a lower intake of saturated FA. The dietary intake was reflected in cord blood TAGs: the n-6 to n-3 FA ratio was lower [mean difference -0.50 (95%CI -0.95 to -0.06)] and the sum of n-3 FA was higher in the intervention than in the control group [1.46 (0.44 to 2.48)% of total FA]. Reasons for the lack of changes in the cord blood CE fraction and FA fractions at 1-month remain unclear, but may indicate that the changes achieved in the maternal diet through counseling were too modest.

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