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Post-exercise breast milk: the new polypill?

Nature Metabolism volume 2, pages 653–654 (2020)Cite this article

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Maternal exercise during pregnancy results in metabolic benefits for offspring, but how mothers transfer these benefits to newborns has been a mystery. A new study now shows that a breast-milk component transmits the metabolic effects of exercise to offspring

The metabolic benefits of regular physical activity have been extensively documented1, and recent experimental studies have unexpectedly shown that many of these benefits are found in the offspring of rodent dams that exercised during gestation2,3. These striking findings show that maternal exercise during pregnancy confers metabolic protection to offspring, and these benefits last far beyond childhood. In fact, maternal exercise has been shown to attenuate age-related impairments in glucose metabolism, increases in adiposity and cardiovascular disorders in the offspring of rodents2,3,4. Because genetic factors do not have a role in the metabolic benefits transmitted from exercised mothers to pups, the question of which biological mechanisms mediate the transfer of benefits to offspring remained unaddressed for many years.

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Fig. 1: 3′SL in breast milk is a metabolic messenger from mother to child.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG), Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

    Jose B. N. Moreira & Ulrik Wisløff

  2. School of Human Movement and Nutrition Science, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

    Ulrik Wisløff

Authors
  1. Jose B. N. Moreira
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  2. Ulrik Wisløff
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Correspondence to Ulrik Wisløff.

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The authors declare no competing interests

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Moreira, J.B.N., Wisløff, U. Post-exercise breast milk: the new polypill?. Nat Metab 2, 653–654 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0234-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0234-5

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