Having an obese and or diabetic father who consumes a high-fat diet may be a contributing factor to the occurrence of obesity in children, according to a study of laboratory rats preformed by Australian researchers.
The researchers found that rats who were the offspring of obese, diabetic fathers that regularly ate a high-fat diet were more likely to have an altered gene expression in two metabolic tissues.
The study found that the altered gene expression in fat and pancreatic tissue in these young rats (even if they were not obese yet) may raise the risks of future obesity, premature aging, cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases.
"While scientists have focused on how the maternal diet affects children's health, this study is part of exciting new research exploring the impact of paternal diet on offspring risk of obesity," said researcher Margaret Morris from the Pharmacology School of Medical Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
"The fact that similar gene markers were affected in pancreas and fat tissue tells us that some of the same pathways are being influenced, possibly from the earliest stages of life," she said. "It will be important to follow up these findings, and to learn more about when and how to intervene to reduce the impact of poor paternal metabolic health on offspring."
For the study, Morris and her colleagues tested two groups of rats. One rat group was obese, diabetic and fed a high-fat diet. The other group of rats were a healthy weight, not diabetic and fed a normal diet. Then, the two groups of male rats were mated with healthy, lean female rats. After the females became pregnant and reproduced, the researchers examined the offspring.
Rats born from the unhealthy fathers showed a poor ability to respond to a glucose challenge, even while consuming a healthy diet. The offspring of the obese rats specifically showed gene expression changes in pancreatic islets, which are responsible for producing insulin to control blood glucose.
The research is published in The FASEB Journal, the publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. The study adds to a growing body of research on the role the father's health plays in the health of his offspring.
"For a long time, we've known that the nutrition and health status of women who are pregnant or who want to get pregnant is critical to the health of her offspring, and we've also suspected that the same is true for fathers to a lesser degree," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal. "This report is the first step in understanding exactly how the nutrition and health of fathers affects his children, for better or worse."