Epigenetics and Pregnancy: Fat Newborns and Kids

By Kelly Gregg MD

                                                  WHY ARE NEWBORNS AND KIDS FAT?


Thirty percent of children are fat.  Many are born that way.  You might say it's just genetics, but it's not.

With rare exceptions, there is no gene that predestines you to be fat.  But if you are born fat, you have a better chance of becoming a fat kid, and you have a better chance of becoming a fat adult.

                                                             WHAT IS EPIGENETICS?

This is the expression of your DNA and is controlled by the cellular environment.  This starts in the womb and continues all your life.  The primary factor controlling epigenetics is your diet, and when you are in the womb, it is the mother's diet.  And when you are a child, it is the family diet.

                                                                WHAT CAN BE DONE?

This book is for pregnant women and the people who provide their prenatal care.  After the baby is born breast feeding affects their epigenetics.  When the baby is weaned, their diet drives obesity.  I will teach you about epigenetics and diet.  This is a start, but my main goal is to prevent obesity, prediabetes, and Type 2 diabetes.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Gregg
• Release date: Oct 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215220382

Book preview

EPIGENETICS

AND

PREGNANCY:

FAT NEWBORNS

AND

KIDS

EPIGENETICS AND PREGNANCY:

FAT

NEWBORNS

AND

KIDS

Kelly Gregg MD

Copyright © 2022 by Kelly Gregg

Edition 2023

All Rights Reserved

[e-mail]

KELLYGREGG.COM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Dutch Famine

Epigenetics 

Look Back to the Dutch

Fatty Acids

Breast Milk

Fat Babies

Obesity

Post-Partum 

Genetics

More Epigenetics

Maintenance Diet

A2 Milk

INTRODUCTION

At the present time, 42% of the adults in the US are obese.  Seventy years ago, this was about 23%.  About 34% of those adults have prediabetes of which 70% of them  will go on to get T2DM.  About 14% of the adults in the US have T2DM.

I have written a book, Diet and Health,  in which I go into detail as to what has happened in the last 200 years to get us into this situation.

I cannot cure T2DM with diet, although I can help manage it and perhaps get the blood sugar to normal and decrease the medications required. Even if I do, you are not cured.  I believe I can keep many of those with prediabetes from progressing to T2DM.  Then I do not have to cure you of anything.  Both T2DM and prediabetes are usually preceded by obesity. 

My main goal is to prevent T2DM, therefore I must treat obesity, or better yet, keep you from getting obese to start with.

I have written a great deal on how to accomplish this goal through a proper diet.  I will tell you up front that exercise plays a very minor role in this.  I gave you the information you need on nutrition and metabolism, what happens when you eat and don’t eat, the basics of fasting, and how we got to where we are now, despite not having an obesity epidemic the previous 5000 years.  I explained how our modern food induces insulin resistance. You will understand the diet to lose weight, the diet to be on if you have had any insulin resistance, and the diet for the entire family to be on for 50 years.

There is a gap in this information.  The incidence of being overweight or obese for the ages 2-19 is now 33%, with the obesity incidence being 20%.  Fifty years ago, it was 5%.  If I am really interested in preventing obesity and T2DM, we must look at this problem.  My Diet and Health book was directed at adults, although the maintenance diet also applies to infants.  The reasons that newborn and infant obesity is rising has multiple factors, some which we cannot control.  That does not mean we cannot reduce the incidence of childhood obesity, and hence adult T2DM.

I am not going to review everything I taught you previously, but I am going to  introduce you to epigenetics, as this plays a prominent role in infant obesity.  There is something  we can do to change the infants and parents diet to decrease the chance of obesity.  The infant eats at the table with the adults, and we must change the adults diet to change the infants.

I am not going to advise anyone to have children fast more than 12 hours or go on a ketogenic diet.  Once the child becomes a teenager, this may change.

I get paid to teach and explain things to you in a manner you will understand.  That is my talent.  This book will not be easy to understand, but I will do all I can to teach you what is happening before birth and the first few years, so that you can use your common sense to provide a good diet.  This is a complicated subject, but when you finish you will understand more that 95% of your neighbors.

Remember, I am a retired physician and hence am not in the business of giving medical advice.  You want medical advice, see your health care provider.

CHAPTER 1

Dutch Famine

The best way to start this story is by examining the Dutch famine.  During World War II the Nazi government cut off the delivery of food to a part of western Netherland.  This began in November 1944 and lasted till May 1945.  The beginning and end of the famine was rather sharp, and it occurred in a country with a well-developed medical system.  Hence it was possible to go back and study the medical records of the women who were pregnant or became pregnant during this famine and determine what effect the exposure to famine had on the children and grandchildren.

This was a real famine with the average caloric intake of the population affected dropping to about 500 calories per day.  Fasting, which is no caloric intake, is a distinct metabolic state with appropriate adjustments made in your body.  I defined starvation in Diet and Health as no caloric intake and no stored fat, and this has its own metabolic state.  During the famine, these individuals  were made to exist on a very low-calorie diet, which is a somewhat different metabolic state from fasting and starvation.  There is some overlap in the metabolic states of these three conditions, but they are not identical.

I am going to look at the infants who experienced the famine while in the womb.  We will consider the infants who were conceived before the famine and hence exposed in the womb to the last trimester of pregnancy, and those who were conceived during the famine and were in the first trimester during the famine.

First let us look at what we observe during a normal pregnancy.  The placenta is very efficient in absorbing nutrients provided by the mother, including various minerals, hormones, glucose, and other nutrients absorbed by the gut and present in the maternal circulation.  This absorption is usually a one-way street, and the baby can absorb things like iron or calcium and cause deficits in the mother.  Even during low caloric intake by the mother, the placenta can scavenge enough nutrient to keep the baby alive.  One can say that what the mother is eating, the baby is eating.  Of course, we remember that whatever is absorbed by the gut