Could Your Father's Diet Before You Were Born Be Affecting Your Health Today?
Listen up, guys—your eating habits today may influence your future children’s behaviors in the future.
In part one of a very small study, researchers from University of Copenhagen in Denmark compared the sperm cells of 23 men—13 who were lean, 10 who were obese—and discovered that the two groups of men possessed different genetic markers that could affect their yet-to-be conceived offspring’s appetite.
In the second part of this research, which was published in the journal Cell Metabolism, investigators followed six obese men before, immediately after and one year after undergoing gastric bypass surgery. And they observed, on average, 4,000 structural shifts in sperm cell DNA.
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“We detected that some chemical additions to the DNA, called epigenetic marks, changed location after gastric bypass,” Romain Barrés, lead researcher, Associate Professor from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, tells Yahoo Health. “We know that epigenetic marks on the DNA has the potential to change the way our genes are expressed. Like switches, they can tune up or down the expression of our genes.”
He further explains that in moderately obese men, they detected “that methylation (a metabolic process used by cells to control gene expression) of genes was dramatically different compared to lean men, particularly at genes important for brain development and the regulation of appetite. And although we don’t know if the epigenetic marks of obese man are transferred to the child—we have not studied the children—they carry potential to change appetite in the offspring.”
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While it appears that a man’s weight at the time of conception determines the type of DNA he will be passing on to his children, we wondered if a man who was obese years prior to conception could still pass those genes along. “I wish I could answer this question,” states Barrés. “For the reason I explained above, we don’t know if epigenetic marks will be transferred to the child. And also, we don’t know how long Dad’s marks are stable.”
Barrés also admits he didn’t expect to observe such significant alterations in epigenetic information. “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 behavior of the next generation is, to my mind, an important find,” he stated in a press release.
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He and his fellow study authors believe they have opened the door to future research on possible interventions that may prevent passing down health conditions, such as obesity. “More work is necessary to answer these questions,” adds Barrés.
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