ReviewThe Proceedings of the Nutrition Society2012
Maternal nutritional status, C(1) metabolism and offspring DNA methylation: a review of current evidence in human subjects.
Review in The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 152 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies on pregnancy vitamin B12 concentrations and offspring DNA methylation.Epigenetics · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- A novel nutritional supplement to reduce plasma homocysteine in nonpregnant women: A randomised controlled trial in The Gambia.PLoS medicine · 2019Trial
- Effect of Maternal Vitamin B12 Supplementation on Cognitive Outcomes in South Indian Children: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.Maternal and child health journal · 2019Trial
- Effects of maternal vitamin B12 supplementation on early infant neurocognitive outcomes: a randomized controlled clinical trial.Maternal & child nutrition · 2017Trial
- The Impact of Nutrition on DNA Methylation: Methodological Challenges in Understanding Cause and Effect.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Choline and Its Companions: Inter-Related Roles of Choline and B Vitamins in Fetal Development and Offspring Health.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Maternal Methyl-Group Donor Intake and Neonatal Birth Size in Singleton IVF Pregnancies.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Review
- Treating Metabolic Syndrome: P4 Medicine Meets Functional Medicine.Phenomics (Cham, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Understanding and applying gene-environment interactions: a guide for nutrition professionals with an emphasis on integration in African research settings.Nutrition reviews · 2025Review
- Maternal and Paternal Dietary Quality and Dietary Inflammation Associations with Offspring DNA Methylation and Epigenetic Biomarkers of Aging in the Lifeways Cross-Generation Study.The Journal of nutrition · 2023Article
- Mitigating the detrimental developmental impact of early fetal alcohol exposure using a maternal methyl donor-enriched diet.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2023Article
- An integrative epi-transcriptomic approach identifies the human cartilage chitinase 3-like protein 2 (Epigenetics · 2022Article
- Review
- Article
- Implication of the Mediterranean diet on the human epigenome.Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene · 2022Review
- Epigenetic Effect of Maternal Methyl-Group Donor Intake on Offspring's Health and Disease.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Maternal Dietary Quality and Dietary Inflammation Associations with Offspring Growth, Placental Development, and DNA Methylation.Nutrients · 2021Review
- Vitamin B12, folate and homocysteine concentrations during pregnancy and early signs of atherosclerosis at school-age.Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2021Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Evidence is growing for the long-term effects of environmental factors during early-life on later disease susceptibility. It is believed that epigenetic mechanisms (changes in gene function not mediated by DNA sequence alteration), particularly DNA methylation, play a role in these processes. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge of the involvement of C1 metabolism and methyl donors and cofactors in maternal diet-induced DNA methylation changes in utero as an epigenetic mechanism. Methyl groups for DNA methylation are mostly derived from the diet and supplied through C1 metabolism by way of choline, betaine, methionine or folate, with involvement of riboflavin and vitamins B6 and B12 as cofactors. Mouse models have shown that epigenetic features, for example DNA methylation, can be altered by periconceptional nutritional interventions such as folate supplementation, thereby changing offspring phenotype. Evidence of early nutrient-induced epigenetic change in human subjects is scant, but it is known that during pregnancy C1 metabolism has to cope with high fetal demands for folate and choline needed for neural tube closure and normal development. Retrospective studies investigating the effect of famine or season during pregnancy indicate that variation in early environmental exposure in utero leads to differences in DNA methylation of offspring. This may affect gene expression in the offspring. Further research is needed to examine the real impact of maternal nutrient availability on DNA methylation in the developing fetus.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.