Perinatal vitamin A excess impacts vitamin A and lipid metabolism in rat offspring.

Vitamin A (VA) supplementation has been recommended for pregnant women at-risk of deficiency, and is widely applied to children under 5 in developing countries. We addressed the effect of excessive VA exposure during pregnancy, lactation and first weeks of life on VA, vitamin E and lipid metabolism in rat offspring. Sprague-Dawley female rats were fed either a 2300 IU.kg-1 VA diet (control diet) or a 9858 IU.kg-1 VA diet (vitamin A supplemented diet - VAS diet) and mated with males fed the control diet. Weanlings were fed the same diet as their mothers until they were 8 weeks old. Organs and adipose tissue were collected from half of the offspring after fasting. The other half was force-fed an oil-in-water emulsion containing retinyl palmitate and [1,1,1-13C3]triolein. VAS-fed female and male offspring displayed a significant accumulation of VA in the liver (18 and 32 times more retinyl esters than respective controls, p < 0.0001) and VAS-fed males exhibited higher plasma retinol concentrations (+ 42.8 ± 6.6% compared to control males, p = 0.0011). Fasting plasma triglyceride concentration was higher for both VAS-fed females and males (+ 44.6 ± 6.8%, p = 0.0007 and + 58.8 ± 20.2%, p = 0.0343, compared to their respective controls). Lipid absorption was increased in VAS-fed males (+ 60.9% of [1-13 C]oleate absorption at 1.5 h post-gavage, p < 0.0001). Overall, our data show that VA overexposure disbalances VA status and detrimentally impacts lipid metabolism in offspring.