Research published in News Medical reveals that a father’s diet before conception can affect his children’s health and body composition. A study involving 43 triads of fathers, mothers, and newborns treated in the public healthcare system of Ribeirão Preto in São Paulo, Brazil, found that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods by fathers correlated with higher birth weight and greater fat accumulation in the baby’s thighs and suprailiac region, commonly known as love handles.
Impact of Paternal Preconception Diet on Newborns
High birth weight and early body fat are risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood. Daniela Sartorelli, a professor at the Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine at the University of São Paulo who coordinated the study published in News Medical, noted that while maternal nutrition has traditionally received attention, the father’s diet matters a great deal for the baby’s health.
Epigenetics and Sperm Formation Mechanisms
The study marks the first demonstration of an association between paternal consumption of ultra-processed foods—industrial formulations largely made from food-extracted substances and synthetic chemical additives with little to no whole food content—and newborn body composition. Researchers hypothesize that these foods negatively impact sperm formation prior to conception.
According to co-author Mariana Rinaldi Carvalho, diets rich in ultra-processed foods create a pro-inflammatory environment that affects sperm quality and alters gene expression passed to the baby through epigenetics. Gene activity can be activated or deactivated depending on dietary habits. One gene identified in the research is IGF-II, which is responsible for fetal growth and inherited exclusively from the father.
Insights from Helmholtz Munich Cohort and Animal Models
Additional research from Helmholtz Munich, published in bioengineer.org on June 5, 2024, examined the impact of paternal diet and body weight using data from the LIFE Child cohort of over 3,000 families, alongside mouse experiments. Head of the Environmental Epigenetics research group Dr. Raffaele Teperino and his team focused on small RNA molecules in sperm called mitochondrial tRNA fragments (mt-tsRNAs), which regulate gene expression and play a key role in the inheritance of health traits.
The analysis showed that a father’s body weight influences children’s weight and metabolic disease susceptibility independently of maternal weight, parental genetics, or environmental conditions. Experiments feeding mice a high-fat diet showed that sperm exposed in the epididymis—where freshly formed sperm mature—led to offspring with an increased tendency toward metabolic diseases. Co-author Martin Hrabě de Angelis and other researchers noted that sperm carry mt-tsRNAs into the egg during fertilization, indirectly influencing offspring energy metabolism.
Placental Development and Future Family Planning
Further animal model research published in bristol.ac.uk in eLife, led by the University of Sheffield with 3D placental structure analysis by the University of Bristol, investigated how high-fat Western-style diets and low-protein diets in male mice alter placenta development and fetal growth. Lead researcher Dr. Adam Watkins stated that fathers are not silent partners and that what a man eats prior to conception shapes the wellbeing of both partner and baby.
While the mouse studies should not be interpreted as direct clinical advice for individual couples, researchers emphasize the broader implications. Sartorelli stated that the findings pave the way for larger studies and reinforce the need to include men in family planning guidance, while Teperino suggested that preventive health care for prospective fathers should focus more attention on diet.
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