Suscetibilidade de fases perinatais no desenvolvimento de doenças cardiometabólicas: a puberdade como período de manifestação de sintomas

Abstract

Understanding how susceptibility in the early stages of life can predispose an individual to a greater risk of developing long-term diseases is the focus of DOHaD studies. The main aim of this thesis is to highlight the importance of early assessment of the effects of harmful stimuli suffered in the early stages of life. Given the subtlety of these short-term effects, most studies focus on studying these effects when they have already been consolidated. Here, we open up a new discussion on puberty as the initial period of symptom onset, and also as a favourable time to establish strategies to mitigate the damage already known in adulthood. To this end, we evaluated the effects of maternal exposure to methylglyoxal on metabolic and cardiovascular parameters in young Wistar rat offspring, and also assessed the contribution of growth hormone secretagogue hormone receptor (GHSR) signalling during perinatal stages on neurodevelopment and energy metabolism in young animals. In both studies, the focus was on evaluating several parameters during the pubertal phase. As main findings, we demonstrated that early exposure to glycotoxins led to cardiac and vascular deficiencies, and that modulation of the GHSR receptor in perinatal stages can affect glucose homeostasis. Throughout life, these effects can become more harmful, leading to heart failure or serious metabolic diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This highlights the importance of puberty as a stage for surveillance and intervention.