Obesity, gestational weight gain, and polyunsaturated fatty acids profile in pregnant Saudi women.

Obesity, gestational weight gain, and polyunsaturated fatty acids profile in pregnant Saudi women. Bioinformation. 2020;16(6):493-500 Authors: Al-Otaibi H, Hussein N, Mustafa H, Al-Mudaires N Abstract Obesity and excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) are associated with a deficiency of essential fatty acids, affecting maternal health during and after pregnancy. Therefore, it is of interest to identify the associations of pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and GWG with lipid profiles in Saudi women after giving birth. Hence, a cross-sectional study of 238 pregnant women aged 20-40 years was conducted at the King Abdul Aziz Hospital, in Al-Ahsa Governorate-Saudi Arabia. Thus, socio-demographic and anthropometric data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), saturated fatty acids (SFAs), and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) levels were assessed from blood samples collected after the women gave birth. The participants generally consumed diets low in omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs and high in SFAs and MUFAs. Among them, 51% had university degrees, only 20.4% were employed, and 50% had pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity. Women with overweight/obesity had a higher omega-6 to omega-3 PUFA ratio than women with normal weight. Overweight, obesity, and excessive GWG were not associated with higher levels of total n-3 PUFAs, docosahexaenoic acid, and α-linolenic acid but were associated with higher l...
Source: Bioinformation - Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Tags: Bioinformation Source Type: research