Scientists found that a child carries different hereditary obesity genes before and after its mother undergoes weight-loss surgeries.
Studies in the past have proven that along with obesity being caused due to poor diet, lack of exercise, and an unhealthily lifestyle, it is also heredity and can even affect an unborn child. Obesity rate has doubled across the globe in the last decade and reportedly 40 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2011. More than one-third of the American population has also been categorized as obese.
Hence, scientists from Laval University in Quebec, Canada conducted a study to analyze the effects of maternal obesity on the genetic makeup of children. They found that children born to mothers before the mother undergoes gastric bypass surgery carry different genes and more severe health issues that children born to mothers after the surgery.
Obesity during pregnancy is also known to cause complications in the baby as it actually alters the child's DNA, causing dysfunction in their glucose regulating genes, putting the unborn child at a greater risk of becoming obese.
"Maternal obesity is imprinting a type of mark that is put on the DNA of the children and that can then impact their gene expression, increasing the risk of chronic disease," said study author Marie-Claude Vohl, Ph.D., of the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods at Laval University in an interview with Healthline.
Though the study was carried out on animals, Vohl said that a similar effect is prevalent in humans as well.
"There is an impact of obesity for the mother, the person that is obese. But there is also an impact on the next generation," Vohl said.
