Early and long-term effects of maternal protein restriction on offspring organs and systems: insights from the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD).
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing experimental and epidemiological literature without systematic search methodology
PubMed 40877640 · doi:10.1007/s10522-025-10316-w
What was done
This narrative review compiled experimental and epidemiological findings on the immediate and long-term effects of maternal protein restriction on offspring organ systems, molecular pathways, and phenotypic outcomes within the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) framework.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative values or effect estimates. It reports qualitatively that maternal protein restriction creates early developmental stress, leaves epigenetic marks, and impairs metabolic, molecular, and phenotypic systems across the offspring lifespan.
Why it matters
It provides an overview of how prenatal protein deficits biologically program lifelong organ vulnerability and chronic disease risk.
Limits
The abstract reports no numerical data, search strategy, or study counts. Because it is a narrative review combining animal models and observational human studies, it lacks systematic bias assessment, standardized exposure definitions, and meta-analytic controls for confounding.
Cited by
- supports Studies demonstrate that low-protein diets during pregnancy lead to smaller babies and epigenetic programming to stay smaller throughout life.