You are what your parents ate!

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/hzm--yaw031416.php

Public Release: 14-Mar-2016
You are what your parents ate!
Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health

For its studies, the team of the Institute of Experimental Genetics (IEG) used mice that had become obese and had developed type 2 diabetes due to a high-fat diet. Their offspring were obtained solely through in vitro fertilization (IVF) from isolated oocytes and sperm, so that changes in the offspring could only be passed on via these cells. The offspring were carried and born by healthy surrogate mothers. This enabled the researchers to rule out additional factors such as the behavior of the parents and influences of the mother during pregnancy and lactation.

"The results showed that both oocytes and sperm passed on epigenetic information, which particularly in the female offspring led to severe obesity," said Prof. Johannes Beckers, who directed the study. In the male offspring, by contrast, the blood glucose level was more affected than in the female siblings. The data also show that - like in humans - the maternal contribution to the change in metabolism in the offspring is greater than the paternal contribution.

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