Parental heredity, environmental factors and adult lifestyle are well known to contribute to the development of health issues. Lin et al. have explored the effects of maternal high-fat diets (HFDs) on stroke outcomes in adult offspring.

Four experimental parameters were tested in Sprague–Dawley rats: the effects on offspring from dams fed with either normal chow or HFDs during gestation and lactation, with resulting male pups fed with either normal chow or HFDs for 120 days. Ischaemic stroke was surgically induced via middle cerebral artery occlusion and parameters including body weight, glucose tolerance, infarct volume, neuronal sensitivity, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis were assessed.

The researchers found increased infarct volume, decreased BDNF expression and alteration in the sensitivity of the HPA axis in offspring from dams fed with the HFD, showing how an HFD may alter key circuitry, reprogramming poststroke events with alterations of post-stroke outcomes.

Read the full article in Journal of Molecular Endocrinology 56 101–112