Many women become overweight or obese during pregnancy. Weight gain during pregnancy can have potential health risksFor mothers, there are also indications that it may be very harmful to their children as they could develop psychological disorders such as autism or depression, according to Neuroscience News, quoting Nature Metabolism.
In this context, the researcher, Professor Alexis Cecerin, and her colleagues from the Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, conducted tests on experimental mice that were fed a high-fat diet.
The results revealed that High fat diet In the mother, immune cells in the brains of mice stimulate male fetuses, not female fetuses, to overconsume serotonin, a brain chemical that affects mood, which subsequently leads to depression-like behavior.
In this context, Cesrine and fellow researcher Professor Staci Bilbo said something similar might be happening in humans as well.
The researchers suggested that this depression is due to changes during fetal brain development.
(expressive)
The researchers suggested that one reason for this might be serotonin, which is often called the “happy hormone”, a molecular messenger in the brain whose levels are normally reduced in people with depression.
Cecerin and her research team discovered that depressed male mice (which were born to mothers who ate a high-fat diet) had less serotonin in their brains, both when they were still in the womb and as adults.
“There is a lot of evidence that when… Eat a diet rich in fatEndotoxins end up in the blood, which basically means there’s an increased prevalence of bacteria in the blood, or endotoxins, which are parts of bacteria.”
The team of researchers measured bacteria levels in mice and discovered that high-fat diets during pregnancy actually boost levels of endotoxins in the placenta and fetal brain.
To find out if the same applies to humans, Cesrine teamed up with Professor Susan Murphy, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine. And it turned out that this was exactly the case in human fetuses, as more fat was measured in human placental tissue, and a decrease in serotonin was detected in the brains of male fetuses, but not in females.