You are what your dad eats: father’s diet before a child is born determines future health

Scientists have linked poor diet and changes in sperm cells

EVIDENCE suggests that a father's lifestyle before they have kids influences the health of their future generations.

 

Leading a healthy lifestyle in your twenties may pay dividends when it comes to having children, says a new study from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research.

After studying sperm samples from 13 lean men and 10 obese men, scientists found that sperm cells possessed different epigenetic marks (genetics caused by factors other than DNA sequence).

Researchers also followed six men before and after gastric-bypass surgery to find out how surgery affected the epigenetic information in their sperm cells. 



Researchers studied sperm cells from 23 men



Scientists found an average of 4,000 structural changes to sperm cell DNA.

Essentially, what was transmitted in the father’s sperm cell can potentially affect the development of a future embryo and shape the child's physiology.

Associate Professor Romain Barrès said: "We certainly need to further examine the meaning of these differences; yet, this is early evidence that sperm carries information about a man's weight. And our results imply that weight loss in fathers may influence the eating behaviour or their future children.

"Epidemiological observations revealed that acute nutritional stress, e.g. famine, in one generation can increase the risk of developing diabetes in the following generations.”

 



Those with a poor diet had different epigenetic markers to the leaner men



Professor Romain Barrès then referenced a study which showed that famine in a small Swedish village meant future offspring of these village-dwellers were at risk of cardiometabolic diseases.

He added: “We did not expect to see such important changes in epigenetic information due to environmental pressure.

 

The research highlighted the importance of a healthy lifestyle for future generations

“Discovering that lifestyle and environmental factors, such as a person's nutritional state, can shape the information in our gametes and thereby modify the eating behaviour of the next generation is, to my mind, an important find.”

The research team reiterate the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but especially how we eat, prior to conception, for future offspring’s health.