Most people recognise the importance of a healthy lifestyle when planning to start a family, but attention has traditionally focused on mothers. New research, however, suggests that fathers could also have a significant influence on the long-term health of their children — and it may begin before conception.
A study carried out by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has found that physical activity in prospective fathers may help reduce the risk of their future children developing conditions linked to obesity and diabetes, per Healthline.
The findings, published by the American Diabetes Association in the journal Diabetes, showed that exercise before conception appeared to reverse many of the harmful effects associated with an unhealthy lifestyle in male mice.
Researchers found that male lab mice which lived sedentary lifestyles while consuming high-fat diets before fathering offspring were more likely to produce young with increased body fat, glucose intolerance and abnormal glucose uptake in skeletal muscles. The latter two are recognised as warning signs associated with diabetes.
However, the outcome changed dramatically when the fathers exercised before conception.
According to the study, physical activity effectively prevented many of those negative health effects from being passed on to the next generation.
Researchers wrote: “Voluntary exercise training of male mice results in pronounced improvements in the metabolic health of adult male and female offspring.”
Lead researcher Kristin Stanford, PhD, an assistant professor of physiology and cell biology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said even relatively modest lifestyle changes before conception could make a meaningful difference.
“Even a month or so of moderate exercise before conception can have major benefits to his children’s metabolic health,” Stanford said.
She also explained that the benefits were not simply short-term.
“We saw an effect on offspring throughout their lifespan, but most prominently at 52 weeks,” Stanford told Healthline.
The team believes these improvements stem from changes occurring within the sperm itself.
Exercise was found to improve sperm motility while also triggering genetic changes that may reduce the likelihood of passing on inherited risk factors linked to obesity and diabetes.
Stanford explained that the researchers examined small RNA molecules, which help regulate how genes are expressed throughout the body.
“We did a full small RNA sequencing and saw several classes of small RNA (which help regulate genetic expression) were changed in response to exercise. So it canceled out the consequences of the father’s poor diet,” she said.
For decades, much of the scientific focus surrounding pregnancy has understandably centred on maternal health.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that obesity during pregnancy can increase a child’s likelihood of developing obesity later in life, while healthy maternal habits have consistently been linked to better outcomes for children.
By comparison, the health of fathers before conception has received far less attention, despite long-standing evidence that smoking, alcohol consumption and drug use can negatively affect male fertility.
Stanford believes the new findings suggest that prospective fathers deserve greater consideration when discussing preconception health.
“In humans there have been a few studies showing that mothers’ diets can really affect the health of their offspring, so maybe the same is true of dads,” she said.
Health and wellness expert Caleb Backe believes the findings fit with what is already known about male health and fertility.
“We expect that women need to make certain lifestyle changes prior to conception, but the idea that men should be doing the same thing is a foreign concept,” Backe told Healthline.
He added: “Male obesity impacts testosterone levels and sperm levels, so this additional information is not at all surprising. It essentially affects the genetic expression of sperm, which would then have a lasting effect on offspring.”
Although the research was conducted using mice, the study was designed to isolate genetic influences by removing many of the environmental and lifestyle factors that naturally affect humans after birth.
That distinction allowed researchers to examine more closely how a father’s physical condition before conception alone could influence the health of future offspring.
Stanford hopes the findings encourage men not only to become more active before having children but also to continue those healthy habits after becoming parents.
“We hope that the study would encourage dads to be more active for their offspring but also to be more active with their offspring,” she said.
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