By Stephen Beech via SWNS
Dads who eat unhealthily can trigger a heart attack or stroke in their daughters, according to new research.
The study of mice found that fathers on a poor high cholesterol diet can cause cardiovascular disease in their daughters.
The American research, published in the journal JCI Insight, is the first to show such a result seen only in female offspring.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death globally, is a group of disorders that affect the heart and blood vessels.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Study lead author Professor Changcheng Zhou, of the University of California, Riverside, said: “It had been previously thought that sperm contribute only their genome during fertilization.
“However, recent studies by us and others have demonstrated that environmental exposures, including unhealthy diet, environmental toxicants, and stress, can alter the RNA in sperm to mediate intergenerational inheritance.”
He explained that ribonucleic acid, or RNA, is present in all living cells. Bearing structural similarities to DNA, it is essential for most biological functions in living organisms and viruses.
Zhou said: “Men who plan to have children should consider eating a healthy, low-cholesterol diet and reducing their own CVD risk factors.
“These factors appear to affect their sperm in influencing the health of their female offspring.
“Our study suggests the sperm passes this information to the next generation.”
The study focused on atherosclerosis, a chronic inflammatory condition that is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease.
In atherosclerosis, plaque, a sticky substance made up of cholesterol, fat, and other substances in the blood, builds up in the walls of arteries.
When the plaque hardens, it narrows the arteries, limiting blood flow to the body and reducing the supply of oxygen to tissues in the vital organs.
Zhou says sperm contains an “abundance” of small non-coding RNA molecules, which are important for gene regulation and many cellular processes.
When they are modified, their functions change significantly across various biological processes.
The research team found that the small RNA molecules in the sperm of mice fed a high-cholesterol diet undergo alterations in response to exposure to the diet.
They also discovered that the altered small RNA molecules can affect early gene expression in mouse embryonic stem cells.
Zhou says that most studies have focused on the effects of maternal factors on offspring health, but the impact of paternal exposures on offspring health has been largely overlooked.
He said: “It is challenging to study the impact of parental exposures on chronic disease development in their offspring because the experiments, in general, are time-consuming and require more resources and careful planning.”
The research team are not sure why only female offspring are affected with CVD.
In their experiments, Zhou and his team fed male genetically engineered mice a high-cholesterol diet, which caused them to have hyperlipidemia, a disorder that, if left untreated, can lead to heart disease and stroke.
Those mice were then mated with female mice that were fed a regular, low-cholesterol diet. Their litter was also fed a low-cholesterol diet.
The female offspring were found to have two- to three-fold increases in atherosclerosis.
Zhou said: “Our study contributes to understanding the etiology of chronic diseases originating from parental exposures.”
He added: “We hope our findings stimulate investigations of the impact of paternal exposures on offspring cardiovascular health in humans.”
