Fathers who exercise regularly before their
children are conceived may program their offspring's genes with an increased
risk for metabolic disorders, according to new research. Alexander Murashov,
associate professor of physiology at East Carolina University, will present
results of the study at the American Physiological Society's Integrative
Biology of Exercise 7 meeting in Phoenix.
Although the
link between a mother's preconception activities and the health of her
offspring is well-documented, the effects of paternal diet and lifestyle on his
progeny are less so. Researchers studied the offspring of male rodents that
were exercised for 12 weeks and found that the fathers' exercise regimen
programmed the offspring to be able to burn calories more efficiently,
"like [an] energy efficient car which uses less gas to run the same
distance" lead author Alexander Murashov said. Instead of a leaner body,
however, when fed a high-fat diet the offspring had "increased body weight
and adiposity, impaired glucose tolerance and elevated insulin levels,"
wrote the research team.
Researchers
analyzed the paternal sperm and found that long-term paternal exercise changed
the expression of several metabolic genes and miRNA in the offspring. The
effect "may be an adaptive mechanism of changing offspring phenotypic
features in response to environmental challenges experienced by fathers,"
the researchers wrote.
The results
were "a total surprise, because our initial hypothesis was that paternal
long-term exercise would decrease risk for obesity in the
offspring,"Murashov said. The unexpected outcome of the study plays an
important role in the future treatment of metabolic diseases in humans.
"Identification of epigenetic obesity markers may lead to new diagnostic
and therapeutic approaches for the diagnosis and management of metabolic
disorders in children caused by environment that affected their parents,"
Murashov said.
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