Effects of Maternal Exercise Modes on Glucose and Lipid Metabolism in Offspring Stem Cells

Maternal exercise positively influences pregnancy outcomes and metabolic health in progeny; however, data regarding the effects of different modes of prenatal exercise on offspring metabolic phenotype is lacking.

To elucidate the effects of different modes of maternal exercise on offspring umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) metabolism.

Randomized controlled trial.

Clinical research facility.

Healthy females between 18 and 35 years of age and <16 weeks' gestation.

Women were randomized to either 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic, resistance (RE), or combination exercise per week or to a non-exercising control.

At delivery, MSCs were isolated from the umbilical cords. MSC glucose and fatty acid(s) metabolism was assessed using radiolabeled substrates.

MSCs from offspring of all the exercising women demonstrated greater partitioning of oleate (P ≤ 0.05) and palmitate (P ≤ 0.05) toward complete oxidation relative to non-exercisers. MSCs from offspring of all exercising mothers also had lower rates of incomplete fatty acid oxidation (P ≤ 0.05), which was related to infant adiposity at 1 month of age. MSCs from all exercising groups exhibited higher insulin-stimulated glycogen synthesis rates (P ≤ 0.05), with RE having the largest effect (P ≤ 0.05). RE also had the greatest effect on MSC glucose oxidation rates (P ≤ 0.05) and partitioning toward complete oxidation (P ≤ 0.05).

Our data demonstrates that maternal exercise enhances glucose and lipid metabolism of offspring MSCs. Improvements in MSC glucose metabolism seem to be the greatest with maternal RE. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03838146.