Granddaughters and great-granddaughters of men who start to smoke before puberty, have more body fat than expected, research shows

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940526

 

 News Release 21-Jan-2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Bristol

 

A new study, led by the University of Bristol and published in Scientific Reports today [21 January], has reported increased body fat in females whose grandfathers or great-grandfathers began smoking before puberty.

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 In earlier research from 2014, they found that if a father started smoking regularly before reaching puberty (before 11 years of age), then his sons, but not his daughters, had more body fat than expected. In the newly published study, they extended this analysis to earlier generations using recently collected data on the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of study participants obtained by questionnaires. They discovered higher body fat in females whose paternal grandfathers or great-grandfathers had started smoking before age 13 compared to those whose ancestors started smoking later in childhood (age 13 to 16). No effects were observed in male descendants. Further research will be needed to confirm these observations in other longitudinal studies and to expand the investigation into other transgenerational effects and ancestral exposures.

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one of the reasons why children become overweight may be not so much to do with their current diet and exercise, rather than the lifestyle of their ancestors or the persistence of associated factors over the years.

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