It has long been accepted that vitamin B9[1] – also called folate – is an important part of an expectant mother’s diet. New research from Canada’s McGill University suggests that folate in a father’s diet may also play an important role in the development of their offspring.
In a study published[2] in the online Dec. 10 journal Nature Communications, researchers led by Sarah Kimmins, PhD, an associate professor of reproductive biology at McGill, looked at how the offspring of male lab mice with a diet poor in vitamin B9 – which can be found in a range of green leafy vegetables, cereals, fruits and meats – were affected by the deficiency.
“We were very surprised to see that there was an almost 30 percent increase in birth defects in the litters sired by fathers whose level of folates were insufficient,” team member Romain Lambrot, PhD, a McGill department of animal sciences researcher, said in a news release[3] .
“We saw some pretty severe skeletal abnormalities that included both craniofacial[4] and spinal deformities[5] ,” added Lambrot.
According to the researchers, the problem lies in the sperm’s epigenome[6] – a “switch” that influences the way genes are turned on or off, and hence the way inherited information is passed along. The study authors reported there are regions of epigenome that are sensitive to life experiences and particularly to diet, and fathers can pass along an embedded “environmental memory” that affects the genetic code[7] of their children.
“Despite the fact that folic acid[8] 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,” explained Kimmins in the news release.
“People who live in the Canadian North or in other parts of the world where there is food insecurity[9] 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[10] with consequences that may be quite serious,” said Kimmins, who also holds the Canada research chair for epidemiology, reproduction and development.
The implications for future dads are clear: Your children are what you eat and a healthy lifestyle and diet will have a positive impact on their health.
“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 the caretakers of generations to come,” cautioned Kimmins.
References
- ^ vitamin B9 (www.medicalnewstoday.com)
- ^ published (www.nature.com)
- ^ news release (www.mcgill.ca)
- ^ craniofacial (www.nlm.nih.gov)
- ^ spinal deformities (emedicine.medscape.com)
- ^ epigenome (ghr.nlm.nih.gov)
- ^ genetic code (www.sciencedaily.com)
- ^ folic acid (www.nlm.nih.gov)
- ^ food insecurity (tfbn.org)
- ^ embryo (www.merriam-webster.com)
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