A University of Texas at Galveston team is capitalizing on what we already know here on SHR. That obese expectant mothers are an incubator for developing babies with pre-existing illnesses. Mother's who begin their pregnancy obese or use their pregnancy as license to put on unnecessary weight place their babies at risk of certain future metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Now a group at UT at Galveston is testing the opportunity to feed babies a class of drug known as a thiazolidinedione. While this drug has the ability to increase insulin sensitivity through the PPAR pathway it has some known and undisputed effects that are not good for the developing baby. Namely a down-regulation in Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor responsible for new blood vessel development, and a reduction in circulating Leptin levels which leads to increased appetite. One effect that is not clearly understood in young children is a drop in Adiponectin levels. Adiponectin appears to have some gender-specific sensitivities. It also has an inverse relationship to fat loss. How this will affect the normal healthy levels of fat storage in a developing baby remains to be seen. Oh, and who can forget the FDA's admission that Actos' (Pioglitazone)  increases the risk of certain cancers such as bladder cancer..

I am aghast at this developing practice. It heralds a time when we can expect many to be on prescription medications from cradle to grave. The researcher point out that the therapy is designed as an intervention - for a short period of the newborns life. I suspect that once a baby is placed on Pioglitazone it will have to remain on it. The drugs ability to increase appetite will create a vicious cycle of weight gain. And what will the lack of new blood vessel development from a suppression in angiogenesis mean to a developing body? The thought scares me.

Please, I beg any woman who is planning on becoming a mother. If you are currently overweight, lose body fat for your baby's sake before you get pregnant. And if you are pregnant don't take this as a license to eat your way into an obese state. Its suggested that a women need only gain a total of 26 pounds (11 Kilos) in order to deliver a healthy baby. - Carl

DALLAS (February 11, 2012) — In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that show that short therapy with the anti-diabetic medication Pioglitazone can prevent the long term effects of maternal obesity on offspring.

This study, Pioglitazone Therapy in Offspring Exposed to Maternal Obesity, is the first step in the long term goal of preventing metabolic syndrome and obesity in children secondary to maternal obesity. The data proposes a potential role for drugs that activate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors in the prevention of metabolic syndrome in adult offspring of obese mothers.

"Obesity in children, which is on the rise, predisposes them to lifelong diseases such as diabetes, high lipid levels, hypertension and cardiac diseases," said Egle Bytautiene, MD, PhD, with The University of Texas Medical Branch, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Galveston, Texas, and one of the study's authors. "A large part of obesity in children is programmed during pregnancy and our study shows that a drug used to treat diabetes in adults can prevent the long term effects of maternal obesity on the offspring, even when used for a short period of time after birth."

Bytautiene and her colleagues placed mice on a high fat diet for three months prior to, and during pregnancy. The resulting pups were weaned to a regular diet. Pups were randomly selected to receive Pioglitazone or a placebo. Treatment was given once daily from 10 to 12 weeks of age. Immediately before and after the treatment period, the offspring were weighed, their visceral adipose tissue was evaluated using computed-tomography, blood was collected for fasting glucose and triglyceride analysis, and intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests were performed. The results showed Pioglitazone therapy significantly reduced body weight gain. There was also a trend towards lower visceral adipose tissue gain and improvement in glucose and triglyceride levels.

This is one of the first experimental studies investigating the impact of postnatal treatment in the offspring of obese dams. Its implications on the long-term metabolic status of the offspring are immense.

In addition to Bytautiene, the study was conducted by Arshag Kalanderian, Monica Longo and George R. Saade, University of Texas Medical Branch, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Galveston, Texas; Nicola Abate, University of Texas Medical Branch, Internal Medicine, Galveston, Texas; and Igor Patrikeev and Massoud Motamedi, University of Texas Medical Branch, Center for Biomedical Engineering, Galveston, Texas.