Category Archives: Fetal Programming

A low-protein paternal diet alters hepatic gene expressions in progeny

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Back in October I blogged about a recent paper by Ng et al. suggesting evidence for paternal programming of genes passed to offspring.  Overall, the study wasn't very convincing (in my humble opinion). But recently Carone et al. give some more evidence that the paternal diet influences the offspring, independent of the maternal diet. Male mice were raised on a control diet with 20% protein, or a "low-protein" diet of 11% protein and the 9% made up with sucrose.  Importantly, the authors noted Read more [...]

Evidence for paternal programming from obesity?

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It is well understood that the diet and health status of mothers can affect offspring by epigenetic mechanisms (see this recent review for example).  This is often called "fetal programming." A recent study (published yesterday) suggests there may be a paternal influence as well- epigenetic programming on the offspring based on the health status of the father.  Maybe.  This study has major limitations and it only found an effect on female offspring, and the results certainly aren't anywhere close Read more [...]