Study: Inadequate parental diet is associated with multigenerational health risks

As the saying goes, you are what you eat. But a new study from Tulane University has found that what's missing in our diets can also affect the health of our offspring over multiple generations.

Recent research supports the idea that starvation in one generation can have deleterious genetic consequences in the next generation. But questions persist about how many generations could be affected if our ancestors suffered a nutritional crisis.

in research Published in a magazine hellionTulane researchers found that when paired mice were fed a low-protein diet, their offspring over the next four generations had lower birth weights and smaller kidneys, a major risk factor for chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure. I discovered that.

“You might think that if you fix the diet of the first generation, the problem would end there, but even if they had a good diet, the next generation… Despite this, they can be born with a low birth weight and a low number of nephrons.

Giovane Tortelote, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Nephrology

Researchers found that modifying children's diets had no effect and that subsequent generations had lower nephron numbers, important filtration devices that help the kidneys remove waste from the bloodstream. I discovered that it continues to be born. While more research remains to determine whether the findings apply to humans, the results highlight the potential for food insecurity and malnutrition to have negative health effects that last for decades.

“It's like an avalanche,” said lead author Giovane Tolterote, assistant professor of pediatric nephrology at Tulane University School of Medicine. “You might think that if you improve your diet in the first generation, the problem will end there, but even if you have a good diet, the next generation, your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, will still suffer from poor diets.” They can be born with a lower birth weight and nephron number even though they have never faced starvation or a low-protein diet.”

Dietary modifications in each generation were unable to restore kidney development in the offspring to normal levels.

Maternal nutrition is crucial for infant development, but this study found that first-generation offspring were negatively affected regardless of whether the mother or father was eating a protein-deficient diet.

This new discovery that diet can have a transgenerational effect on kidney development is part of epigenetics, the study of how environmental factors affect gene expression without changing DNA sequence. is one of the latest discoveries in the field.

The researchers studied four generations of offspring, and nephron numbers began to show signs of normalizing in the third and fourth generations. Tolterote said further research is needed to understand which generation reverts to proper kidney development and why the trait is passed on in the first place.

“While maternal diet is definitely very important, there also appears to be epigenetics from the father that control proper kidney development,” Tortelote says.

This study also reveals further understanding of the underlying causes of chronic kidney disease, the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.

“If you're born with fewer nephrons, you're more likely to have high blood pressure, but the more high blood pressure you have, the more damage you do to your kidneys, so this becomes a frightening cycle and a public health crisis that could affect people in their 50s and 60s.” “If you apply this to the human lifespan, it would take many years,” Tolterote said. “There are two main questions: Can we fix it and how do we fix it?”