%0 Journal Article
%T Effect of Intergenerational Chronic Undernutrition on Ponderal, and Linear Growth
%A Mar¨ªa Florencia Cesani
%A Evelia Edith Oyhenart
%A H¨¦ctor Mario Pucciarelli
%J ISRN Nutrition
%D 2014
%R 10.1155/2014/453460
%X The aim of this paper was to analyze if intergenerational undernutrition causes growth retardation in weight and body length in two generations of rats and, if so, to assess whether the delay is cumulative. Male and female rats were assigned to one of the following groups: (1) control: they were fed ad libitum and constituted the parental generation (P), and (2) undernourished generations (F1 and F2): they were fed on 75% of the control diet. Animals were weighed and X-rayed every ten days from 20 to 100 days old in order to measure total body length. Also, body mass index was calculated. Data were processed by ANOVA and LSD post hoc tests. Impairment in weight, body length, and body mass index was found in both generations; nevertheless growth retardation was greater in F2, indicating a cumulative effect of nutritional stress. Sex differences were found, since the cumulative effect of generational undernutrition was greater and earlier in males than in females. It is concluded that when the undernutrition acts with constant intensity during several generations, the growth retardation is cumulative, indicating a negative secular trend. 1. Introduction During the last century there has been, in most industrialized countries, a significant increase in body size [1¨C3]. These changes in growth patterns over time are known as a positive secular trend and are the result of improvements in the quality of life [4]. Conversely, some populations have experienced growth delays from one generation to the next. Authors as Komlos [5] and Bogin and Keep [6] reported that, in Europe, increased stature declined during the second half of the eighteenth century just as it did in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. Both periods were also times of rapid changes in population size, with increases in rural-urban migration, urbanization, industrialization, class division, and decline in the life expectancy of lower-income sectors. In this sense, adverse environmental factors can cause negative secular growth trend [7]. Among the environmental factors that modulate growth, nutrition plays an important role. It is known that the nutritional conditions that are experienced in early life can profoundly influence human biology and long-term health [8, 9]. Mothers who were undernourished as girls are 40 percent more likely to give birth to children who do not survive to age five. And malnourished mothers are more likely to die in childbirth. Moreover, some authors consider the undernutrition as an intergenerational factor because its effect may last beyond the
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.nutrition/2014/453460/