A mother's influence on metabolic disorders.

Human epidemiological studies have revealed that maternal obesity predisposes offspring to metabolic disorders, though little is known about the mechanism that causes this phenomenon. In a step forward, Vogt et al. have shown in mice that the offspring of mothers fed a high-fat diet during lactation show an alteration in the number of projections in nerves in the hypothalamus in the brain and in the pancreas. These offspring are predisposed to be obese and develop diabetes, and the mechanism by which these connections are altered seems to be through insulin signaling. Here we asked three experts what the implications of these findings might be to humans