Exercício físico materno : efeito protetor contra a instalação de obesidade e disfunções metabólicas na prole de mães obesas

Abstract

Introduction: Maternal gestational obesity is a favorable factor for the early onset of metabolic disorders in the offspring, while physical exercise is an important tool capable to reversing this situation. Objective: to evaluate the effect of a maternal swimming training, during pregnancy and lactation, on biometric parameters and glycemic homeostasis of rat-offspring from obese mothers. Methods: Wistar female rats were induced to obesity (hypercaloric diet, 4,500kcal/kg plus sucrose solution, 20%) ad libitum. Four weeks later, they were submitted to swimming training, which lasted throughout pregnancy and lactation. Female rats’ glycemia was assessed both in pregnancy and lactation. At birth, the birthweight and size of the rat-offspring were measured, as well as the body weight and food and water intake throughout development were. At 100-days-old, the pups were submitted to glucose (ipGTT) and insulin (ipITT) tolerance tests, and later euthanized for tissue collection for body composition analysis. The study was approved by the Animal Ethics Committee (2108.017073/2019-56) and the data were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Results and discussion: In relation to the sedentary-control groups, both the mothers and rat-offspring of the obese-sedentary group showed an increase in the adiposity index, hyperglycemia and insulin resistance (P<0.05). Furthermore, the obese-sedentary rat-offspring had low birth weight, unlike the pups from exercised mothers (P<0.05). However, when compared to the obese-sedentary group, both the mothers and obese-exercised rat-offspring were equivalent to their respective control groups (P>0.05), a fact that shows the effectiveness of maternal swimming in preventing the onset of metabolic disorders in the rat-offspring, as a long-term effect of maternal obesity. Conclusion: Maternal swimming training, throughout pregnancy and lactation, was effective in promoting a positive metabolic programming, as it attenuated the onset of long-term metabolic disorders in the offspring, such as low birth weight, obesity, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance.