The corpulence of the grandparents, would weigh more than one would believe in the health of the grandchildren. A new Australian study published in the journal Molecular metabolism shows that descendants of obese grandparents are more at risk of developing diseases linked to junk food, such as type 2 diabetes or hypertension.
The study, conducted on mice, suggests that without having a bad lifestyle, the grandchildren of obese people tend to have the same adverse health effects as their ancestors.
To find out, Catherine Suter of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sidney, Australia, investigated the long-term impact of paternal obesity. After observing the offspring of pairs made up of obese male mice and skinny females, the researcher realized that the pathologies could be transmitted to subsequent generations. Results that confirm that “parental traits” can pass from one generation to another without being written directly into the genes. A phenomenon referred to by scientists as “transgenerational epigenetics“, recalls The New Scientist.
The impact of the epigenetics of obesity on offspring
The offspring of the obese male mice as well as the second line showed early signs of liver disease, diabetesor obesity, usually favored by an unbalanced diet. This association was made only on the male offspring and not the female rodents.
Another observation, even when the offspring of obese males were subjected to a healthy diet and kept a normal weight, they continued to be more exposed to obesity-related diseases.
A vicious cycle that would be broken on the third generation: the impact of the obesity of the ancestors has in fact had no repercussions on the health of the great-grandsons.
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