Department Experimental Cardiology, Excellence Cluster Cardio-Pulmonary System, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Giessen, Germany.
PLoS One. 2011 Mar 9;6(3):e17443. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017443.
It is well accepted that reduced foetal growth and development resulting from maternal malnutrition are associated with a number of chronic conditions in later life. On the other hand such generation-transcending effects of over-nutrition and of high-protein consumption in pregnancy and lactation, a proven fact in all developed societies, are widely unknown. Thus, we intended to describe the generation-transcending effects of a high-protein diet, covering most relevant topics of human life like embryonic mortality, infant death, and physical health in later life.
Female mice received control food (21% protein) or were fed a high protein diet (42% protein) during mating. After fertilisation, females stayed on their respective diet until weaning. At birth, pups were put to foster mothers who were fed with standard food or with HP diet. After weaning, control diet was fed to all mice. All offspring were monitored up to 360 days after birth. We determined glucose-tolerance and measured cardiovascular parameters using a tip-catheter. Finally, abdominal fat amount was measured.
We identified a worried impact of high-protein diet during pregnancy on dams' body weight gain, body weight of newborns, number of offspring, and also survival in later life. Even more important is the discovery that high-protein diet during lactation caused a more than eight-fold increase in offspring mortality. The observed higher newborn mortality during lactation is a hitherto non-described, unique link to the still incompletely understood human sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Thus, although offspring of lactating mothers on high-protein diet might have the advantage of lower abdominal fat within the second half of life, this benefit seems not to compensate the immense risk of an early sudden death during lactation. Our data may implicate that both pregnant women and lactating mothers should not follow classical high-protein diets.
众所周知，母体营养不良导致的胎儿生长发育迟缓与许多慢性疾病有关。另一方面，在妊娠和哺乳期过度营养和高蛋白摄入的这种跨代效应，在所有发达社会都是一个已被证实的事实，但却鲜为人知。因此，我们旨在描述高蛋白饮食的跨代效应，涵盖人类生活中大多数相关的话题，如胚胎死亡率、婴儿死亡率以及后期的身体健康。
雌性小鼠在交配期间接受对照饮食（21%蛋白质）或高蛋白饮食（42%蛋白质）。受精后，雌性小鼠继续保持其各自的饮食，直到断奶。出生时，幼崽被安置在喂养标准饮食或高蛋白饮食的代孕母亲身边。断奶后，所有幼崽都被喂养对照饮食。所有后代都被监测至出生后 360 天。我们测定了葡萄糖耐量，并使用尖端导管测量了心血管参数。最后，测量了腹部脂肪量。
我们发现，妊娠期间高蛋白饮食对母鼠体重增加、新生鼠体重、后代数量以及后期的存活率有令人担忧的影响。更重要的是，我们发现哺乳期高蛋白饮食导致后代死亡率增加了八倍以上。哺乳期新生鼠死亡率升高是一个迄今为止尚未描述的、与尚未完全理解的人类婴儿猝死综合征（SIDS）独特联系。因此，尽管哺乳期高蛋白饮食的后代在生命的后半段可能具有较低的腹部脂肪优势，但这种优势似乎无法弥补哺乳期突然死亡的巨大风险。我们的数据可能表明，孕妇和哺乳期母亲都不应该遵循传统的高蛋白饮食。
