The impact of metabolic disease associated with metabolic syndrome on human pregnancy

Metabolic diseases induced by metabolic syndrome (MS) have been increased during the past two decades. During healthy pregnancy maternal organs and placenta are challenged to adapt to the increasingly physiological changes. In addition to the increasingly proatherogenic MS, pregnant woman develops a high cardiac output, hypercoagulability, increased inflammatory activity and insulin resistance with dyslipidemia. The MS describes a cluster of metabolic changes associated with an impact on the physiology of many organs. While the metabolic syndrome is directly responsible for the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, additional impact on human pregnancy like preterm delivery with low-birth-weight infants as well as the development of diseases such as diabetes, preeclampsia and hypertension. Recent evidence suggests that MS is originated in fetal life in association with maternal nutrition during pregnancy and fetal programming which apparently increases the susceptibility for MS in children and later life. This review will describe the MS in association with the origin of the emerging diseases during pregnancy such as diabetes, preeclampsia and others. The influence of perinatal environment and maternal diet and smoking on MS as well as the genetic biomarkers of MS will be described.