Intergenerational associations between maternal body mass index before or during pregnancy with offspring...

In this systematic review, we aimed to investigate the association of maternal body mass index (BMI) before or during pregnancy and the metabolic profiles of offspring in the life course.

We searched six databases: PubMed, Ovid Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Wan Fang data and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, which yielded 3584 unduplicated articles, and after the full-text screening, 12 observational and three intervention studies met the inclusion criteria. Ten studies assessed pre-pregnancy BMI (ppBMI), whereas the remaining used booking BMI during antenatal visits. Most studies (10 out of 15) examined newborn metabolomics, four in early-mid childhood, and only one in adolescents and adults. The number of mother-offspring pairs ranged from 57 to 10,251, and the age of the population ranged from 15 to 44.

We found that maternal BMI before or during pregnancy was positively associated with adverse offspring metabolomic profiles, characterized by lipids (higher triglyceride, total cholesterol and lower high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol), amino acids (higher branched-chain amino acids and aromatic amino acids), carbohydrate-related metabolites (higher glucose and insulin). Studies on lipids have the most consistent results in both observational and intervention studies. The impact of maternal BMI on offspring metabolomics exerted from birth till adolescence and young adulthood.

Our study highlights a potential intergenerational association between maternal BMI and offspring metabolomic profiles. Interventions on maternal BMI before or during pregnancy showed the potential to reverse the adverse changes in offspring's metabolic profiles, but long-term health benefits warrant to be verified.