The health of children depends on that of their fathers: epigenetics transmits the risk of obesity to their daughters. They are also more likely to develop breast cancer.
“Do what I say, not what I do”. The maxim could prove to be more complicated than expected for girls whose fathers are obese. According to a study carried out at Georgetown University (United States) and published in Scientific Reports, the weight of daughters whose fathers were obese at the time of conception would be higher at birth and later. They would also be at greater risk of developing breast cancer.
Similar results had already been observed for pregnant mothers, who had until then focused most of the research in the field. Here, the researchers mated normal-weight female mice and obese males, and observed their offspring to determine what influence the fathers might have.
Epigenetics in action
In particular, they detected modifications in micro-RNA – proteins capable of activating or suppressing the expression of a gene – both in the sperm of fathers and in the breast tissue of daughters. These changes, caused according to the researchers by the obesity of the fathers, would be one of the vectors of the “heredity” of obesity.
These micro-RNAs indeed regulate the mechanisms linked to the management of insulin, associated with weight gain and numerous molecular processes promoting the appearance of cancers.
“Our study was conducted on mice, but it supports recent findings that show that in humans, the semen of obese men has significant epigenetic alterations,” says Dr. Sonia de Assis, oncology researcher at Georgetown, and responsible for the study. Our animal study suggests that these alterations could have consequences on the risk of cancer in the next generation. “
Psychology too
But the influence of the fathers does not stop there. They also have a psychological role to play, as another study from the University of Guelph (Canada), published in International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Surprisingly enough, the researchers observed that in predicting the onset of overweight or obesity in young men, the quality of the father-son relationship was more important than the relationship with the mother.
The health of mothers during pregnancy and their ability to establish eating routines and a healthy lifestyle are therefore not unique factors linked to the increased risk of obesity. For young men as for women, the psychological and epigenetic influence of fathers is no longer negligible.
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