Exercised breastmilk: a kick-start to prevent childhood obesity?

Abstract

Exercise has systemic health benefits through effects on multiple tissues, with intertissue communication. Recent studies indicate that exercise may improve breastmilk composition and thereby reduce the intergenerational transmission of obesity. Even if breastmilk is considered optimal infant nutrition, there is evidence for variations in its composition between mothers who are normal weight, those with obesity, and those who are physically active. Nutrition early in life is important for later-life susceptibility to obesity and other metabolic diseases, and maternal exercise may provide protection against the development of metabolic disease. Here we summarize recent research on the influence of maternal obesity on breastmilk composition and discuss the potential role of exercise-induced adaptations to breastmilk as a kick-start to prevent childhood obesity.

Keywords: aerobic exercise; diet; epigenetic modifications; human milk oligosaccharides; lactation; obesity.

Figure 1.

Exercise induces multiple molecular adaptations in the heart, adipose tissue, pancreas, skeletal muscle, circulation, liver, and brain, and via inter-organ crosstalk. Few data are currently available for exercise-induced adaptations in human breastmilk, but exercise may induce adaptations to breastmilk that can mediate whole-body metabolic and cardiovascular health in the offspring. The underlying mechanisms for such effects are unclear, but it is likely that breastmilk mediates improvements in the offspring liver and microbiome. Figure were created with biorender.com.

Figure 2.

Maternal exercise during lactation may decrease childhood obesity risk, mediated via exercise-induced improvements in breastmilk composition. Parts of the figure were created with biorender.com

Figure 3.

The first 1000 days include pregnancy and the first two years of life. Epigenetic DNA imprinting is particularly active during this period. Nutrition during this period, both via the placenta in utero and through breastmilk, formula milk and solid food after birth, plays a key role in epigenetic DNA imprinting, thus affecting individual susceptibility to the subsequent development of obesity, and other non-communicable diseases. Parts of the figure were created with biorender.com.