A study in mice found that moms that were fed a high-fat diet had longer offspring than those that ate a normal diet, and the effect of that diet was seen even into the mom’s grandchildren, a finding researchers expect would also hold true in humans.

How the research worked

The study, published in the journal Endocrinology, involved feeding a group of female mice a high-fat diet, then breeding them with normal-weight males. Their babies tended to be heavier than the offspring of normal-weight moms, but that was because they were also 10 to 15 percent longer than the normal-weight mice offspring.

When the babies were fed a normal diet and then bred — some couples having two high-fat moms, some with one high-fat and one normal-diet mom — the grandchildren of the mice who’d had the high-fat diet were still longer than the descendants of the normal-weight mice, and the trait passed down in both maternal and paternal lines.

What this might mean for humans

It’s certainly possible that a similar mechanism is happening in humans, which might explain some of the growth the human population on a whole has enjoyed in the past century and a half or so when more food — and more fatty food — has become widely available.

But there are a lot of other factors that play into a person’s height, including genetics, their own access to healthy foods, exercise, living conditions and general health. So even if a study of this sort could be conducted in humans, it would be a lot more difficult to say the grandmother’s diet played a role in the height of the offspring.

Why eating for height isn’t a good idea

We can’t imagine that anyone would read this story and think, “Great, now I can eat whatever I want and my grandchild will be an NBA star.” But should that thought cross your mind, you should know that both the moms and the offspring in the high-fat diet group had reduced insulin sensitivity, which puts them at risk of developing diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease and obesity.

As researchers note, all those potential health problems aren’t worth the hope of being a few inches taller.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 and is filed under Childhood obesity, Food miscellaneous. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.