Mothers-to-be who follow a high-salt diet put their children's future health at risk

High-salt diets are a major cause of death worldwide and can lead to cardiovascular diseases. As the daily salt intake in China remains high, a group of Chinese researchers used a rat model to explore the impact of a mother-to-be's high-salt diet on their offspring. The team, from The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University in China, has now published its results in the KeAi journal Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinical Medicine.

The study indicates that maternal high-salt diets result in hypertension and cardiovascular conditions in the mother. In addition, they induce high blood pressure and increase the predisposition to hypertension in the offspring. These conditions are often accompanied by cardiac fibrosis; a thickening of the cardiac valves.

Commenting on the experiment, co-corresponding author Jingsi Chen explains: "We separated the pregnant female rats into three separate groups and fed each one a diet containing a different concentration of salt (high, normal and low). To explore the effects of a maternal high-salt diet on hypertension, we monitored the blood pressure and urine protein levels of both the mothers and their eventual offspring.