Study Links Father's Folate Consumption to Health of His Offspring

New research on gestation suggests that a father's diet can influence his offspring's health. While most research in the field is focused on the mother, the new study indicates that fathers should receive due attention in future gestation research.

The research, led by Sarah Kimmins of McGill University, focused on folates, also known as vitamin B9. Folates are found in a wide range of foods, including green leafy vegetables, cereals, fruits and meats. Mothers are commonly recommended to consume an adequate amount of folates in order to prevent miscarriages and birth defects.

Kimmins' research revealed that fathers, too, should be aware of their folate levels, as a folate-deficient diet on the paternal side can have effects on an infant in the womb.

"Despite the fact that folic acid is now added to a variety of foods, fathers who are eating high-fat, fast food diets or who are obese may not be able to use or metabolize folate in the same way as those with adequate levels of the vitamin," Kimmins said. "People who live in the Canadian North or in other parts of the world where there is food insecurity may also be particularly at risk for folate deficiency. And we now know that this information will be passed on from the father to the embryo with consequences that may be quite serious."

For their study, Kimmins and her colleagues conducted tests on laboratory mice, comparing fathers with a diet insufficient in folates with fathers who consumed an adequate amount of the vitamin. Their tests revealed that paternal folate deficiency was associated with an increase of a host of birth defects in their offspring when compared to the offspring of mice whose fathers were fed a diet with sufficient folate levels.

"We were very surprised to see that there was an almost 30 percent increase in birth defects in the litters sired by fathers whose levels of folates were insufficient," said Dr. Romain Lambrot, of McGill's Department of Animal Science, one of the researchers who worked on the study. "We saw some pretty severe skeletal abnormalities that included both cranio-facial and spinal deformities."

The group's research revealed that there are certain regions of the sperm epigenome that are sensitive to diet and that those get passed along to offspring.

"Our research suggests that fathers need to think about what they put in their mouths, what they smoke and what they drink and remember they are caretakers of generations to come," Kimmins said. "If all goes as we hope, our next step will be to work with collaborators at a fertility clinic so that we can start assessing the links in men between diet, being overweight and how this information relates to the health of their children."

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.