Maternal high‐fat high‐sugar diet impairs bone quality and strength but not cartilage in aging mice

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent aging disorder of synovial joints and recent work suggests that a parental high‐fat diet increases OA severity following joint injury in offspring. We hypothesized that a maternal high‐fat high‐sugar (HFHS) diet would promote spontaneous osteoarthritis‐related cartilage and bone changes in 1‐year‐old offspring. Female C57BL/6 J mice were placed on either a chow control or HFHS diet for 6 weeks before mating to a chow‐fed C57BL/6 J male and maintained on their assigned diets throughout pregnancy and lactation. Male and female offspring were weaned onto a chow diet, raised to 1 year of age, and evaluated for cartilage and bone changes indicative of OA. However, offspring did not show early signs of OA as measured by histological Mankin scoring, mechanical testing of the pericellular matrix, histological synovitis scoring, or subchondral bone thickening as measured by microcomputed Tomography. On the other hand, male offspring from HFHS‐fed dams had reduced trabecular bone quality in the tibial metaphysis and decreased cortical thickness. Although maternal HFHS diet did not impact trabecular or cortical bone quality in tibias of female offspring, the radii of these animals had decreased cortical thickness, increased medullary area, and impaired breaking strength compared to those of control‐fed dams. Finally, we evaluated bone quality and strength in male and female F2 offspring and found that the grandmaternal diet modestly impacted radial bone geometry but not strength. Together these results suggest that maternal HFHS diet impairs F1 offspring skeletal integrity in a sex and bone site‐specific manner.