Children’s Metabolic Health Can Be Improved With Exercise During Pregnancy, According To A Study
In recent years there have been many studies on the benefits of exercise in the gestation period, not only for the mother, but also for the baby. A study published in March 2021 explains why children’s metabolic health can be improved with exercise during pregnancy.
That exercise during pregnancy can improve the metabolic health of children is not news. However, this study explains why. The research has been carried out by the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with researchers from Japan, the United States, Canada and Denmark; and has been published in the journal Cell Metabolism .
What is metabolic health?
Good metabolic health implies having ideal values of five variables, without being receiving medications. In adults, these values are as follows:
- Fasting blood glucose.
- Triglycerides.
- HDL cholesterol.
- Blood pressure.
- Waist circumference within the limits considered healthy.
All of these factors are related to the incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. And they not only affect adults, but they can also affect children. When these values are not adequate, you can suffer the so-called metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome brings together a group of risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems. It is important to note that this condition is one of the most important complications of childhood obesity.
Exercise During Pregnancy and Children’s Metabolic Health
Experts have known for some time that the risks of obesity and type 2 diabetes can originate in the critical period of prenatal development. Many previous studies have linked increased maternal body weight and unhealthy diets with poorer metabolic outcomes in their children, in most cases years after birth.
It was important for the researchers to understand why this occurs, as well as to understand the mechanisms of how exercise in women during pregnancy can reverse these effects.
This study has managed to explain the process by which physical exercise during pregnancy improves the metabolic health of children in the long term. And it does so in combination with adequate levels of vitamin D, improving the levels of a protein and through a series of intermediate steps that optimize glucose tolerance in the offspring.
“Our data suggest that exercise, in combination with optimal levels of vitamin D, could be particularly beneficial during the second trimester of pregnancy,” the researchers explain.
Exercise during pregnancy can save children from health problems as adults
Shortly before this study was published, in mid-March, the University of Virginia published research in the Journal of Applied Physiology that suggested that exercise during pregnancy can allow mothers to significantly reduce the chances of their children developing diabetes and other metabolic diseases throughout your life. This research was also done with mice.
The study found that future parents of rodents (fathers and mothers) who get fat on a fatty diet before mating, produce offspring with high risks of metabolic problems later. But if mothers are active during pregnancy, those risks disappear.
The study suggests that when a mother exercises during pregnancy, she can help protect her unborn children from the harmful health effects of their father’s poor eating habits, as well as her own.
According to the researchers, the results provide the first evidence that maternal exercise alone during pregnancy can prevent the transmission of metabolic diseases from parents to children.
When it comes to exercise in pregnancy …
The truth is that for most of us technical research does not contribute much. However, we can get an idea: Not only have experts found that exercising during pregnancy is beneficial for preventing metabolic disease in children, but they already know why. That is why it is important to follow their recommendations. Because the best gift we can give our children is to ensure their health.
