Hur ens barn mår beror inte bara på social uppväxtmiljö utan också på genetiska faktorer. En ny studie, ”Paternally Induced Transgenerational Environmental Reprogramming of Metabolic Gene Expression in Mammals”, publicerad i Cell, finner en genetisk effekt på små möss av faderns matvanor:

Offspring of males fed a low-protein diet exhibited elevated hepatic expression of many genes involved in lipid and cholesterol biosynthesis and decreased levels of cholesterol esters, relative to the offspring of males fed a control diet. Epigenomic profiling of offspring livers revealed numerous modest (∼20%) changes incytosine methylation depending on paternal diet, including reproducible changes in methylation over a likely enhancer for the key lipid regulator Ppara. These results, in conjunction with recent human epidemiological data, indicate that parental diet can affect cholesterol and lipid metabolism in offspring and define a model system to study environmental reprogramming of the heritable epigenome.

Detta kan även ha implikationer för människor:

Taken together, these studies suggest that a better understanding of the environment experienced by our parents, such as diet, may be a useful clinical tool for assessing disease risk for illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease.

Om du funderar på att bli pappa kanske du särskilt bör fundera igenom dina kostvanor.