Severe intrauterine growth restriction is associated with higher spontaneous carbohydrate intake in young women.

An early human signal linking fetal growth with adult food preferences

Could the relationship between restricted fetal growth and later metabolic risk involve the foods people habitually choose? This study examined that possibility in young adults, bringing a question developed partly through animal research into a human birth cohort.

Linking birth records with diet and metabolism. Researchers assessed 2,063 members of the Ribeirão Preto cohort in Brazil at approximately twenty-four years of age. They used birth weight relative to expected weight for gestational age to classify fetal growth, and collected dietary questionnaires, body measurements and blood markers including glucose, insulin and lipids.

The design allowed food composition and metabolic status to be considered together. A dietary difference already present before a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome could be relevant to the development of risk, although establishing the sequence would require further follow-up.

The clearest dietary result was in women. Women with severe growth restriction had a higher carbohydrate-to-protein intake ratio, even after adjustment for social variables. The association also appeared across the continuum of fetal growth rather than only at a single category boundary. Women in both growth-restricted groups had a larger waist-to-hip ratio, a measure of body-fat distribution.

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was similar across the groups. Thus, the findings did not show that the observed food pattern had already produced a greater burden of that syndrome. Nor did the ratio alone establish that total calorie intake was higher.

The study contributed early human evidence to the proposal that prenatal development may be related to later food preferences. It suggested a potential behavioral route linking fetal conditions with long-term health, while leaving open whether the dietary pattern persisted, caused subsequent metabolic differences, or reflected other shared influences.