MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jakob Christensen
Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark;
Merete Juul Sørensen
Regional Centre of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital
Risskov, Denmark
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: We found that the risk of
autism spectrum disorder was increased by 50% in children of mothers who took antidepressants during pregnancy. However, when we controlled for other factors related to the medication, by comparing with children of mothers with a diagnosis of depression or with un-exposed siblings, the risk was smaller and not significantly increased.
Dr. Hui Wang[/caption]
Prof Hui Wang PhD
Wuhan University
China
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We started our work in the adverse outcome of maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy about 15 years ago. Then, we found that prenatal caffeine intake could result in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in the offspring. However, the underlying mechanism was unclear.
So, we start the current work, and found that hat maternal caffeine intake disrupts liver development before and after birth, which might be the trigger of the adult non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the offspring rats. Moreover, we further found that the fetal programming of liver glucocorticoid – insulin like growth factor 1 axis, a new endocrine axis first reported by our team, might participate in such process.