The teratogenic effects of alcohol have long been publicized; yet fetal alcohol exposure is one of the most common preventable causes of birth defects. Currently, alcohol abstinence during pregnancy is the best and only way to prevent FASD.
However, alcohol consumption remains astoundingly prevalent among pregnant women; therefore, additional measures need to be made available to help protect the developing embryo before irreparable damage is done.
Can Certain Nutrients Protect Against the Effects of Fetal Alcohol Exposure?
Hence, researchers investigated maternal nutritional interventions using methyl donors as potential preventative measures to mitigate the adverse effects of fetal alcohol exposure.
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They demonstrated that supplementing the maternal diet with a combination of four methyl donor nutrients, folic acid, choline, betaine, and vitamin B12, before conception and throughout gestation effectively reduces the incidence and severity of alcohol-induced morphological defects without altering the DNA methylation status of imprinting control regions and regulation of associated imprinted genes.
These findings suggest that supplementing the mother’s diet with certain nutrients before and during pregnancy could be an effective preventative measure to protect embryos from accidental early fetal alcohol exposure, especially in cases where the mother has nutritional deficiencies.
These results will also lead to future mechanistic studies investigating the underlying biological mechanisms by which certain nutrients protect early embryos from alcohol-induced defects that could deepen our understanding of fetal development pathways and lead to novel interventions for the prevention or treatment of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
Source: Eurekalert
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