Dr. Bev Muhlhausler started in the FOODplus Research Centre as a Senior Research Fellow in February. Bev gained her PhD in Physiology at the University of Adelaide in 2006. Bev attained a NHMRC Peter Doherty Postdoctoral Fellowship which she began at the University of South Australia, and now continues at the University of Adelaide.
Her research to date has focused on the early origins of obesity and metabolic disease, particularly the effects of maternal diets on foetal and child development. This work has incorporated studies in sheep and rodent systems. Over nutrition of pregnant ewes demonstrated that increased maternal (and therefore foetal) glucose levels increased the expression of lipogenic genes (i.e. genes responsible for deposition of fatty tissue) such a PPAR-gamma, lipoprotein lipase and glycerol-3-phosophate dehydrogenase. The lambs of ewes on a high glucose diet were therefore more susceptible to accumulating fat after birth. This work showed that the offspring of overfed mothers not only accumulated more fat but also demonstrated increased milk intake in the first 3 weeks after birth.
Bev is currently carrying out work which looks at how omega-3 fatty acids in maternal diets may affect long-term health outcomes (such as obesity and diabetes) in children. Feeding experiments in rats (supplementing diets with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA) showed that DHA appears to affect levels of fat deposition. Bev is continuing work on a follow up study of a large-scale randomised controlled trial, the DOMInO (DHA for Improving Mother and Infant Outcomes), in which women were provided with fish-oil capsules or placebo capsules during late pregnancy. The researchers are currently following up all of the Adelaide-based DOMInO children at 3 and 5 years of age, some 1600 individuals. Bev is looking particularly at the effect of maternal omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on obesity development and pre-diabetes markers in children.
Written by Brad Hocking
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