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    Women who followed a Mediterranean diet during pregnancy had kids who, at 2 years, were less likely to be overweight or obese (6%) compared to those in the control group (33%). This effect is partly due to an epigenetic modification of leptin expression


    Women who followed a Mediterranean diet during pregnancy had kids who, at 2 years, were less likely to be overweight or obese (6%) compared to those in the control group (33%). This effect is partly due to an epigenetic modification of leptin expression

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-024-01626-z

    Bytes Europe

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    4 Comments

    1. AllanfromWales1 on

      6% on a trial with 104 women is hardly a huge difference. Surprised if it’s outside the confidence limits for no effect.

    2. forever_erratic on

      Some details that I think are important: there were 4 obese kids in the control vs 0 obese kids in the treatment. This was statistically different but pretty scant evidence. 

      Also, I think the control was poor. The treatment group had meetings with a dietician recommending med diet. The control had no meetings. They should have had meetings with general suggestions to properly control for the effect of meeting a dietitian. 

    3. YesWeHaveNoTomatoes on

      This is a pretty small study but interestingly in the stats section it looks like they did control for both maternal weight and adherence to the prescribed diet, both of which are pretty good proxies for income: the Mediterranean diet requires more expensive grocery items and more time to prepare than the standard American diet, and obesity is well-correlated with poverty in the US.