A maternal high-fat diet may accelerate adipo-immunologic aging in offspring

Maternal obesity and improper nutrition predispose offspring to chronic metabolic diseases. Although the frequency of these diseases increases with aging, the effect of a maternal high-fat diet on aged offspring remains elusive.

C57BL/6J female mice were fed a high-fat (HF) diet or a control (CON) diet and then mated. All offspring remained with their birth dam until weaning at 3 weeks. After weaning, the offspring from the HF and CON diet-fed dams were given either the HF diet or CON diet, which resulted in four groups: CON/CON, CON/HF, HF/CON, and HF/HF. All mice were immunized with ovalbumin and then sacrificed at 70 weeks.

The body weights in offspring from dam exposed to a HF diet were significantly higher than those in offspring from dam fed a CON diet in the early stage of life but then became lower in the later stage of life. The serum adiponectin levels were lower in offspring from dam exposed to a HF diet and were correlated with adiposity measured by visceral and subcutaneous fat mass. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was much more severe in the livers of offspring from the maternal HF groups. In particular, lobular inflammation and fibrosis were prominent in the HF/HF group. Regarding immunological parameters, senescence-associated T cells were increased, and natural killer T cells were decreased by the effect of both maternal and offspring HF diet.

We have demonstrated that a maternal high-fat diet may accelerate the adipo-immunologic aging process.