Journal
NUTRIENTS
Volume 14, Issue 5, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/nu14050938
Keywords
lactoferrin; overweight; obesity; female fertility problems
Categories
Funding
- National Center for Child Health and Development
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare [2019B-9]
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology of Japan [19H01067, 21K18298]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [19H01067, 21K18298] Funding Source: KAKEN
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LF supplementation ameliorates fertility problems in overweight mice but does not effectively reverse female infertility in obese mice.
The secretory glycoprotein lactoferrin (LF) is suggested to ameliorate overweight regardless of non-genetic or genetic mechanisms. Although maternal overweight represents a key predictor of offspring growth, the efficacy of LF on fertility problems in overweight and obese mothers remains unknown. To address this issue, we examined the effect of LF ingestion by analyzing overweight mice (Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) mice with high-fat diets; HF mice) and obese mice (leptin-deficient mice with type II diabetes; ob/ob mice). Plasma insulin, leptin, glucose, and cholesterol levels were measured, and thermal imaging and histological analysis were employed. The litter size of HF females was reduced due to miscarriage, which was reversed by LF ingestion. In addition, LF ingestion suppressed overweight prevalence in their offspring. The component analysis of the maternal blood demonstrated that glucose concentration in both HF females and their offspring was normalized by LF ingestion, which further standardized the concentration of insulin, but not leptin. LF ingestion was unable to reverse female infertility in ob/ob mice, although their obesity and uterine function were partially improved. Our results indicate that LF upregulates female fertility by reinforcing ovarian and uterine functions in females that are overweight due to caloric surplus.
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