Couples who are overweight before they get pregnant increase the risk of their child developing fatty liver disease, suggests research published online in the medical journal Gut.
If both parents are overweight or obese before they conceive, their child’s subsequent odds of developing metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) by the age of 24 are more than three times higher than those whose parents were of normal weight.
Two-thirds of this is influenced by excess weight between the ages of seven and 17, as measured through the child’s body mass index (BMI), the findings indicate.
Previously known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, MASLD is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, affecting an estimated 15% of children and more than 30% of adults, note the researchers.
It is a potential precursor to liver cirrhosis (scarring) and failure.
The researchers from Washington University in St Louis and Indiana University, both in the United States, analysed information from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).
By the age of 24, one in 10 (201) of the 1,933 children involved had MASLD; the rest had a normal liver.
Those with MASLD were more likely to be male and to have a higher BMI.
Each additional kilogramme of maternal BMI increased the odds of MASLD by 10%, while the equivalent increase in paternal BMI raised the odds by 9%.
Further analysis, accounting for mothers’ and children’s sugar consumption, plus genetic predisposition to MASLD, generated similar findings.
Although the drivers behind the observed associations aren’t yet fully understood, the researchers nevertheless conclude that their results “lend support to an early life influence of biparental obesity on offspring metabolic health, suggesting efforts to mitigate excess adiposity of both mothers and fathers before conceiving may confer longitudinal benefits to the metabolic outcomes of their future offspring”.
