What Your Dad Ate Before You Were Born My Influence Your Health

What your dad ate can actually impact your health. Scientists have found that your parent's lifestyle before you were born may influence your health.

In this latest study, the researchers compared sperm cells from 13 lean men and 10 obese men. They found that the sperm from the lean and obese men, respectively, possess different epigenetic marks that could alter the next generation's appetite.

That's not all the researchers found, either. Scientists followed six men before and one year after gastric bypass surgery to find out how the surgery affected the epigenetic information contained in the sperm cell. The researchers found an average of 4,000 structural changes to sperm cell DNA from the time before the surgery, directly after, and one year later.

"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," said Romain Barres, one of the researchers, in a news release. "And our results imply that weight loss in fathers may influence the eating behavior of their future children."

The findings reveal the importance of developing a healthy weight before having children. It seems as if weight can play a major role in determining the health of offspring, which means it's certainly a factor that should be taken into account when attempting to have a child.

"We did not expect to see such important changes in epigenetic information due to environmental pressure," said Barres. "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."

The findings are published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Related Articles

Anxiety, Depression More Common Than You Thought Among New Dads

Obesity Alters DNA Methylation Patterns in Sperm

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).