NEW ORLEANS -- A local LSU Health Sciences Center researcher is discovering some clues that may help explain the obesity epidemic. And it may surprise you to know that modern science is unveiling that it could go all the way back to before you were born.
For six years Dr. Melinda Sothern has been studying children only 7 to 9 years old. Why is there a childhood obesity epidemic, and why do they already have signs of pre-diabetes?
"Our study is showing that in children as young as 7, we have liver fat. They have fatty liver as young as 7. They have poor fat oxidation. Their muscles can't use fat as a fuel," said Sothern, a professor of public health and a licensed clinical exercise physiologist at LSUHSC.
Her research is finding a common thread. Fighting fat, and the diabetes and heart disease that come with it in your adult years, appears to be linked to two things: whether a full-term baby is born too overweight or too underweight, and the mother's weight a year before and during pregnancy.
First, if the mother does not eat enough during pregnancy, especially protein, the baby will be born with insufficient organs and muscles, causing lifelong problems.
On the other end of the spectrum, if the mother is very overweight, it sends too much insulin to the baby. That can cause it to be born very overweight hurting it's metabolism for it's entire life.
"Their obesity is so stubborn to treat. We run all these tests on them and there's actually no explanation for why they are so overweight. These babies are always hungry because they've even had altered signaling between the brain and the stomach for hunger," she said.
But it all started with the baby boomers, who as evidence shows, are three times as overweight as their parents. And baby boomers grew up playing outside, not in front of computers, and eating home-cooked meals, not fast food.
Sothern said there is scientific evidence supporting her theory of the "obesity trinity." One, the harm of smoking during pregnancy was not known back in the 1950s and 1960s. When expectant mothers smoked, it affected the baby's birth weight and organ development, including the brain in the unborn baby.
"The nicotine introduced into the baby, we now even think has long-term problems with dopamine receptors. It's really, really, it's a disaster," said Sothern, explaining that the organs, muscles and weight of the baby were underdeveloped.
Second, it was not in vogue to breast feed when baby boomers were born. The formula back then was inadequate and babies were started on food earlier in life.
"There's been at least, I would say 20, 30 studies already that have shown that babies that have breast fed, are less likely to become obese and less likely to develop heart disease and diabetes," she said.
And third, without the use of birth control, frequent pregnancies could interfere with the mother's body being ready to adequately nourish the baby, again creating a baby who had underdeveloped organs and muscles and weight.
Now, Sothern says the cycle continues because the baby boomers' obese children are having children.
"These are the babies that are now teenagers and mothers themselves, and they are morbidly obese, unfortunately. And they want to have children," she said. "Well, they are going to get gestational diabetes at the worst. At the least, they are going to have Hyperinsulinemia (a condition in which there are excess levels of circulating insulin in the blood, also known as pre-diabetes.) "Their babies are really going to be doomed to very poor metabolic functioning if they don't get themselves healthy first. And so all I can tell you 15 to 25-year-old women out there, is don't even think about having a baby until you get your body in shape," Sothern said.
But there may be some good news for babies born now who are potentially programmed to have metabolism problems.
Sothern believes that children fed a healthful and high fiber diet, and who are physically very active early on in life, specifically before puberty, could de-program their bodies from being at-risk for obesity. She said children should be playing and not stuck in highchairs, playpens, watching movies, playing computer games or coloring.
