Importance des régimes et leur influence sur le développement foetal: fonction et structure du pancréas endocrine suite à une carence en protéines au cours de la vie intra-utérine.

When an isocaloric low protein diet (8% versus 20%) is administrated to rats during gestation, the fetus or the neonate has a lower body weight and the structure and function of the endocrine pancreas is altered: islet cell proliferation, islet size and islet vascularisation are reduced when compared with a control group. If these fetal islets are cultured during 7 days in vitro, they secrete less insulin than normal islets in response to an AA challenge. When these newborns are fed with a low protein diet until adult age and analyzed at 70 days, the same alterations of the endocrine pancreas persist: the in vitro insulin secretion of the isolated islets in response to AA is dramatically depressed although their response to glucose is normal. However in vivo glucose and insulin levels in response to oral glucose challenge are abnormal. In addition, permanent functional alterations seem to persist when induced in utero. A normal diet (20% protein) given from birth to adulthood does not restore a normal insulin response in vivo to an oral glucose challenge.