ALTERATIONS IN PUBERTY IN THE RAT FEMALE OFFSPRING CAUSED BY MATERNAL OVERWEIGHT

GALARZA, ROCÍO ALEJANDRA; RHON CALDERÓN, ERIC ALEJANDRO; CORTEZ, ANALÍA ELIZABETH; FALETTI, ALICIA GRACIELA

San Pablo

Conferencia; International Conference on Reproductive Biology and Toxicology; 2014

Introduction: Obesity is associated with increased likelihood of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. These risks increase in direct relation with the severity of obesity, being significant even in women who are only overweight. It is necessary an appropriate maternal body weight to allow an adequate fetal programming. Objectives: The aim of this work was to study the changes on the follicular growth in the rat offspring caused by maternal overweight. Methods: Adult rat were fed with either a standard laboratory diet (18.4 kJ/g; 11.4% fat, 71.4% carbohydrate, 17.2% protein) or with a high-fat palatable (cafeteria) diet (24.1 kJ/g; 30% fat, 54.6% carbohydrate, 15.4% proteins) ad libitum from the time of weaning to adulthood. When these animals exhibited 20% overweight compared with controls, all rats were mated and female offspring from control (C) and overweight maternal (D) were used. Both diets were also used during pregnancy and lactation. Results: Compared with C, D animals exhibited advanced vaginal opening (1-3 days, p