Less Vitamin D, More Fat

Children are more likely to have more body fat during childhood if their mother had low levels of Vitamin D during pregnancy, according to scientist at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU), university of Southampton, UK. Low vitamin D status has been linked to obesity in adults and children, but little is known about how variation in a mother’s status affects the body composition of her child.

Low vitamin D status is common among young women in UK and although women are recommended to take additional 10 x g /day of vitamin D in pregnancy, supplementation is currently not routine. In a study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last month, scientist at the MRC LEU compared the vitamin D status of 977 pregnant women with the body composition of their children.

The finding showed that children born to mothers with low vitamin D status in pregnancy had more body fat when they were six year old. These differences could not be explained by other factors such as the mother’s weight gain in pregnancy, or how physically active children were. The 977 women are part of the Southampton Women’s Survey, one of the largest women surveys in the UK.

Study lead Dr. Sian Robinsin says: “In the context of current concerns about low vitamin D status in young women and increasing rates of childhood obesity in the UK, we need to understand more about the long-term health consequences for children who are born to mother’s who have low vitamin D status. “Although there is growing evidence that vitamin D status linked to body fatness in children and adults, this research now suggest that the mother’s status in pregnancy could be important too.

“An interpretation of our data is that there could be programmed effect on the fetus arising from a lack maternal vitamin D that remain with the baby and predispose him or her to gain excess body fat in later childhood. “Although further studies are needed, our finding add weight to current concern about the prevalence of low vitamin D status among women of reproductive age,” This study is part of a wider body of work by MRC LEU into how factors during pregnancy might have a long-term influence on childhood growth and development.

The unit’s director, Prof. Cyrus Cooper, comments: ‘This is a wonderful example of multi-disciplinary research using the unique clinical and biochemical resource provided by the Southampton Women’s Survey. The observations that maternal vitamin D in sufficiency might be associated with reduced size at birth, but accelerated gain body fat during childhood, add to the considerable amount of evidence suggesting that vitamin D status during pregnancy may have critical effects on the later health of offspring.”