We already know: women pregnant must have a balanced diet adapted to their needs. And obviously, they would not be the only ones: a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals that the lifestyle of the father before the design has an impact on the baby’s health.
A variable protein, carbohydrate and calorie intake
For the purposes of this work, led by Michal Polak and Joshua Benoit, two biologists from the University of Cincinnati (USA), male and female Drosophila melanogaster (also called “fruit flies” or “vinegar flies”) , known for their high reproductive abilities, were separated into two groups. For 17 days, the females were all fed semolina corn. The males were put on 30 different yeast-and-sugar diets that varied dramatically in protein, carbohydrate, and calorie content.
The males were then mated and the researchers found that the embryos from the males who had been on a diet high in carbohydrates and poor in protein were more likely to resist than others. The researchers also observed that males with lower energy reserves were less likely to see their embryos survive. “A good number of studies suggest that male diet affects reproductive capacity, but so far the reduction in viability was much smaller than what we found,” Joshua Benoit points out. “Finding a link between paternal diet and offspring health was a real surprise,” concludes Michal Polak.
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