[mrsD]

Vitamin B12 deficiency in pregnancy could raise type 2 diabetes risk for children, study finds

This is a Yahoo item and they often are purged so I don't expect a long life on the net for this info.

Ensuring pregnant women get enough vitamin B12 could help reduce their children's risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Researchers based in the UK have found that the vitamin -- principally found in meat and fish -- can affect levels of a hormone called leptin, which triggers the "full" feeling after eating, and which can be linked to metabolic conditions such as diabetes. .....
According to researchers at the University of Warwick, the metabolic changes linked to vitamin B12 deficiency could be caused by abnormal levels of leptin, a hormone that tells us when we are full after eating.

The researchers' study showed that babies born to mothers deficient in B12 had higher than normal leptin levels. This suggests that a lack of B12 can adversely program the leptin gene, changing the levels at which the hormone is produced as the fetus grows.

Leptin is produced by the body's fat cells and levels of the hormone rise in the body after eating. In cases of obesity, leptin levels rise and remain constantly higher than normal, which makes certain individuals feel hungry and overeat. This can cause leptin resistance, continued overeating and increased risk of insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes.

"The nutritional environment provided by the mother can permanently program the baby's health," said Dr Ponusammy Saravanan, senior author of the study. "We know that children born to under or over nourished mothers are at an increased risk of health problems such as type-2 diabetes, and we also see that maternal B12 deficiency may affect fat metabolism and contribute to this risk. This is why we decided to investigate leptin, the fat cell hormone."