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Is maternal diet supplementation beneficial? Optimal development of infant depends on mother's diet

¹ From the Nutrition Research Institute, and the Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health and School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.

² Presented at the symposium "Methyl Donors, Iodine, and DHA—Is Maternal Supplementation Beneficial?" held at Experimental Biology 2008, San Diego, CA, 6 April 2008.

³ Supported by grants from the NIH (DK55865 and AG09525) and by grants from the NIH to the UNC Clinical Nutrition Research Unit (DK56350), the UNC General Clinical Research Center (RR00046), and the Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility (ES10126).

⁴ Reprints not available. Address correspondence to SH Zeisel, Nutrition Research Institute, Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health and School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 7461, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. E-mail: steven_zeisel{at}unc.edu.

There are periods during perinatal development in which specific nutrients are required for optimal development, and there is growing evidence that optimal dietary intake of these nutrients, which include iodine, docosahexaenoic acid, choline, and folate, is important. Lessons in how these nutrient effects were identified can help us to broaden our approaches for finding other critical nutrients: we are looking for nutrients for which there is a wide range of dietary intake, that have no or marginal pathways for biosynthesis, and that are needed by dividing progenitor cells. For some of the nutrients discussed, such as iodine and folate, the effects in humans are abundantly clear; for others, animal data are the most convincing. More human studies need to be conducted. We need a better understanding of diet and diet supplement intake during pregnancy and lactation and of whether diets are particularly low in some nutrients. Also, we need to understand how common genetic variations influence nutrient requirements during these periods. If we are going to supplement maternal and infant diets, first we must understand much more about the risks of having too much of a critical nutrient. Whatever the limitations of our current state of knowledge, it is apparent that pregnancy and lactation are periods during which good nutrition is exceptionally important. The infant is not protected from the inadequate diet of the mother.

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