Maternal high-fat diet influences stroke outcome in adult rat offspring

Diet-induced epigenetic modifications in early life could contribute to later health problem. However, it remains to be established whether high-fat diet (HFD) consumption during pregnancy and the suckling period could predispose the offspring to stroke. The present study investigated the influence of maternal HFD on stroke outcome in adult offspring. Female Sprague–Dawley rats were fed a normal diet (5.3% fat) or a HFD (25.7% fat), just before pregnancy until the end of lactation. Male offspring were fed with the control diet or the HFD after weaning, to form four groups (control offspring fed with the control diet (C/C) or the HFD (C/HFD) and offspring of fat-fed dams fed with the control diet (HFD/C) or the HFD (HFD/HFD)). The offspring received middle cerebral artery occlusion on day 120 followed by behavioral tests (neurological deficit score, staircase-reaching test and beam-traversing test), and infarct volumes were also calculated. We found that the HFD/C rats displayed larger infarct volume and aggravated functional deficits (all P