Funding outcome

In pregnancy, very high amounts of cholesterol in the mother may lead to a high risk of pregnancy complications. High-risk pregnancies are also associated with poor health outcomes in the children. However, how this happens is not fully understood, but the placenta is thought to play a central role. Thus, in this proposal, we aim to understand how high cholesterol levels during pregnancy can impair the placental function and how these changes may impact the fetus and child later in life. To do so, we will recruit pregnant women, using informed consent and measure their cholesterol levels prior to delivery. We will then collect the placenta from the same women so that we can assess if the protein expression of certain protein markers is related to excessively high maternal cholesterol levels. We will also use a well-established perinatal database of the population in Alberta to validate whether maternal cholesterol levels during pregnancy are correlated with poor neonatal and childhood health. We believe that this is an important subject to study, since it is estimated that 1 out of every 4 individuals will have too much cholesterol during pregnancy, therefore determining the mechanisms by which high maternal cholesterol levels contribute to later life risk of cardiovascular disease may help improve health outcomes. These data would provide evidence that has the potential to change clinical practice so that more individuals will have lipid levels assessed during pregnancy. This can lead to the development of specific therapies to improve pregnancy outcomes and children's later-life health.