The researchers found in mice that a high-fat diet during pregnancy prevented Alzheimer's disease in offspring

It is well known that a high-fat diet carries health risks, but for expectant mothers, the situation may be completely different According to a study recently published in molecular psychiatry, a high-fat diet may prevent Alzheimer's disease in the offspring of pregnant women The team from Lewis Katz School of medicine at Temple University in the United States, for the first time, confirmed through animal research that a large amount of fat consumed by a mother during pregnancy can prevent some changes in the brain of offspring, which are the characteristics of late-onset Alzheimer's disease Research Director, head of Alzheimer's research center, Lewis Katz School of medicine, Temple University, chairman of Scott Richards Arctic star Alzheimer's research foundation, Professor Domenico, Department of pharmacology and Microbiology "We know that for humans, if a person's mother develops Alzheimer's after the age of 65, the risk of developing the disease increases at the same age," pratic ò said The obvious explanation behind this phenomenon seems to be the genetic factors passed on from mother to offspring, but so far, there is no gene to explain that mother's Alzheimer's disease will pass on to offspring This fact suggests that environmental factors such as lifestyle and diet adopted during pregnancy may significantly affect the risk of future generations of the disease Diet as a risk factor deserves special attention, especially the diet rich in fat and cholesterol Previous studies have shown that high fat intake in young / adult mice directly aggravates changes in brain function, which may eventually lead to Alzheimer's disease To better understand the unique relationship between maternal Alzheimer's and offspring 's risk, Dr Pratic ò's team analyzed the fat intake of female mice during pregnancy The study used a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease Pregnant mice were fed a high-fat diet from the beginning to the end of pregnancy When the offspring were born, the mother rats returned to the normal diet and maintained it throughout the lactation period The offspring of these mice followed the same diet pattern for life When the offspring were 11 months old, they were tested for their learning and memory abilities Dr pratic ò said: "surprisingly, we found that offspring fed a high-fat diet during pregnancy performed better in learning and memory than those fed a regular diet." They observed that this improvement was associated with good synaptic integrity In fact, the offspring of the high-fat diet rats had significantly improved synaptic function compared with the offspring of the conventional diet Synapse is the place where neurons connect with each other and transmit information It plays an important role in learning and memory formation In addition, compared with the offspring of mothers fed regular diet during pregnancy, the offspring of mothers fed high-fat diet had less β - amyloid protein in the brain, which was an abnormal protein accumulated in neurons, it would lead to abnormal function of nerve cells, and eventually significantly reduce the ability of memory and learning When the team began looking for a potential mechanism for this beneficial effect, they found that offspring fed a high-fat diet showed reduced levels of three important genes related to Alzheimer's disease, namely β - secretase, tau and pathological tau protein regulatory gene Cdk5 (cyclin dependent kinase 5) The team found that the three genes had been turned off early in mouse development because a high-fat diet increased FOXP2 protein activity They confirmed that FOXP2's inhibition of these three genes could eventually prevent brain function decline in offspring and prevent the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease Dr pratic ò said: "our research shows that effective prevention of Alzheimer's may need to start during pregnancy At this particular stage of life, diet may have a serious but underestimated long-term effect on brain health "