November 13, 2006 - Oakland, CA A new study by scientists at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) is the first to show that a mother's diet during pregnancy influences the health of her grandchildren by changing the behavior of a specific gene. The study was conducted using mice of an unique strain called "viable yellow agouti" also known as Avy in scientific terms. These mice possess a gene that influences the color of their coats as well as their tendency to become obese and develop diabetes and cancer. The new research shows that the diet consumed by a pregnant Avy mouse affects the health of not only her pups, but also their pups her grandchildren.

The study will be published in the November issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was conducted by CHORI Scientist David Martin, M.D., and Assistant Scientist Kenneth Beckman, Ph.D., in collaboration with Drs. Jennifer Cropley and Catherine Suter from the Victor Chang Heart Institute in Sydney, Australia. In their experiments, the scientists fed some Avy mice a standard lab diet based on common foods consumed by humans. Other mice were fed this same diet supplemented with common nutritional supplements including folate, choline, betaine, vitamin B12, zinc and methionine.

The supplements were fed to the mice for a week during mid-pregnancy. The offspring were examined for their coat color, and female offspring were themselves mated again (without a supplemented diet) to produce a third generation of "grandchildren." The results showed that the supplements changed the behavior of the agouti gene in the first generation of pups, shifting their coats towards a brown color, and had the same effect on pups born in the next generation to mice that were not exposed to the supplemented diet.

"Although researchers have long known that there is a connection between a mother's diet and her children's health this is the first case in which the relationsh
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Contact: Diana Yee
dyee@mail.cho.org
510-428-3120
Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland
13-Nov-2006