Excess Vitamins or Imbalance of Folic Acid and Choline in the Gestational Diet Alter the Gut Microbiota and Obesogenic Effects in Wistar Rat Offspring

Overview

Journal Nutrients

Date 2021 Dec 28

PMID 34960062

Citations 11

Authors

Ulrik N Mjaaseth

Jackson C Norris

Niklas D J Aardema

Madison L Bunnell

Robert E Ward

Korry J Hintze

Clara E Cho

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Excess vitamin intake during pregnancy leads to obesogenic phenotypes, and folic acid accounts for many of these effects in male, but not in female, offspring. These outcomes may be modulated by another methyl nutrient choline and attributed to the gut microbiota. Pregnant Wistar rats were fed an AIN-93G diet with recommended vitamin (RV), high 10-fold multivitamin (HV), high 10-fold folic acid with recommended choline (HFol) or high 10-fold folic acid without choline (HFol-C) content. Male and female offspring were weaned to a high-fat RV diet for 12 weeks post-weaning. Removing choline from the HFol gestational diet resulted in obesogenic phenotypes that resembled more closely to HV in male and female offspring with higher body weight, food intake, glucose response to a glucose load and body fat percentage with altered activity, concentrations of short-chain fatty acids and gut microbiota composition. Gestational diet and sex of the offspring predicted the gut microbiota differences. Differentially abundant microbes may be important contributors to obesogenic outcomes across diet and sex. In conclusion, a gestational diet high in vitamins or imbalanced folic acid and choline content contributes to the gut microbiota alterations consistent with the obesogenic phenotypes of in male and female offspring.

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