A team of international scientists believes that the shape of a future child’s face is influenced by their mother’s diet during pregnancy, as detailed in their findings published in the journal Nature Communications.
The researchers confirmed that a protein-rich diet is typically associated with larger and more pronounced noses and jaws in offspring.
It turns out that subtle differences in people’s appearances—from skull shape to the amount of cartilage in the nose—are shaped in the womb by mTORC1 genes activated by nutrition. The more protein a woman consumes during pregnancy, the more active these genes become, according to the Daily Mail.
Researchers suggest that it’s even possible to “tune” a child’s appearance by adjusting the length of their nose, the width of their nostrils, and the shape of their cheeks and jaw in advance.
Despite sharing the same genes, siblings often look completely different. Even “identical” twins are never absolutely the same. The reason behind these subtle differences has puzzled scientists for a long time. However, they have now discovered that a person’s facial features are somewhat dependent on their mother’s diet during pregnancy. “We found that modulating protein levels in the maternal diet regulates the activity of the mTORC1 gene, leading to subtle but distinct changes in the craniofacial shape of embryos,” the scientists noted. They also added that this causes variations in facial features.
During the experiment, researchers provided pregnant mice and fish with different diets. They found that these dietary differences affected the signaling of mTORC1 in their wombs, imparting unique traits to the offspring. Enlarged features, more pronounced jaws, and thicker nasal cartilage in children were linked to a maternal diet high in protein. Conversely, feeding mothers low-protein foods resulted in offspring with thinner and sharper features.
The researchers stated that such a correlation could give certain animals an advantage when foraging for food in areas where it is scarce.