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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2005;294:297.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Babies born to malnourished women are more likely to become obese and develop problems such as diabetes later in life. Now, Japanese scientists report that research in mice points to a possible link between poor nutrition during pregnancy and an increased risk of obesity in the offspring: a premature surge of leptin, a hormone that normally helps regulate metabolism by triggering the sensation of being full (Yura et al. Cell Metabolism. 2005;1:371-378).

In the study, mice born to underfed mothers were small at birth but grew quickly and caught up with control mice after 10 days. When fed a high-fat diet, the prenatally undernourished mice gained weight faster and also experienced a surge in blood leptin a week earlier than the control animals. However, when mice born to normally fed mothers were given an injection of leptin 5 to 10 days after birth (to mimic the . . . [Full Text of this Article]