Impact of Maternal High-Fat Diet on Offspring Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Health: Spotlight on Oxidative Stress

Abstract

Cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome (CKMS) encompasses interconnected cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic disorders, including obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes. Oxidative stress is increasingly recognized as a central driver of this multi-organ dysfunction. Among maternal influences, exposure to a high-fat diet (HFD) during pregnancy and lactation consistently predisposes offspring to CKMS-related phenotypes in animal models. While oxidative stress is implicated as a key mediator, its precise role in developmental programming remains unclear, and comparing the differences in its role between overt CKMS and CKM programming is critical. Critical gaps include whether oxidative stress acts uniformly or in an organ- and time-specific manner, which signals initiate long-term redox alterations, and whether these effects are reversible. Furthermore, its interactions with other programming pathways-such as renin-angiotensin system activation, epigenetic dysregulation, gut microbiota imbalance, and altered nutrient sensing-remain insufficiently explored. This review uniquely highlights maternal HFD-induced oxidative stress as a mechanistic axis of CKMS programming and delineates unresolved questions that limit translation. By integrating evidence across organ systems and proposing priorities for multi-organ profiling, refined models, and longitudinal human studies, we outline a forward-looking agenda for the field. Ultimately, clarifying how maternal HFD and oxidative stress shape offspring CKMS risk is essential to inform targeted antioxidant strategies to reduce the intergenerational transmission of CKMS risk.

Keywords: antioxidants; cardiovascular disease; chronic kidney disease; developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD); diabetes; high-fat diet; hypertension; metabolic syndrome; obesity; oxidative stress.

Figure 1

Organ-specific pathologies and inter-organ crosstalk associated with exposure to a high-fat diet. ↑ = increased.