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Benoit said his results could potentially apply to other animals, including humans, although it’s too early to say whether paternal nutrition can affect embryonic mortality in people.

“It’s not that far of a stretch,” he said. “A lot of the things they see happening in flies happens in humans as well.”

Similarly, a 2016 study in the journal Breast Cancer Research found that the female offspring of male rats fed lard, which is high in saturated fat, had higher rates of breast cancer than the female offspring of male rats fed diets of corn oil, which is high in polyunsaturated fat.

“These novel data show that paternal high-fat diets influence their female offspring’s susceptibility to mammary cancer, with consumption of lard increasing and corn oil reducing daughters’ mammary cancer risk,” the researchers wrote. “Thus, paternal diet before conception sets a stage for a daughter’s risk of developing breast cancer.”

Last year, a group of Tufts University researchers published a study in the journal PLoS One that found male mice with both too little and too much Vitamin B had female offspring with larger intestinal tumors and higher risks for elevated cholesterol than the offspring of mice with normal Vitamin B, or folic acid, levels.

While other research has shown that fathers’ unhealthy macronutrient levels — carbohydrates, protein and calories — can negatively affect their offspring, this was the first to show that even unhealthy micronutrient levels can have effects, too, said Jimmy Crott, an author on the study and associate professor in Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

The PLoS One study also served as a reminder that, while lots of people are undernourished, getting too much of certain vitamins can also be harmful.

“In nutrition we see this kind of a lot where we see kind of a bell-shaped curve where too little of a nutrient is bad and you get a sweet spot with kind of intermediate intake and then a high intake is also bad,” Crott said.

While that’s true, Thornburg said he’s far more concerned about the many people who aren’t getting enough nutrients. “The bigger problem that we have to face in the health of our population is not related to people over consuming supplements, it’s underconsuming nutrients,” he said.

Also important, Thornburg said, is the message that paternal nutrition doesn’t just begin when a man decides to start a family. It begins when boys being actively making sperm, which happens around ages 11 or 12.

Good nutrition needs to start then — in boys and girls alike.

“People have published books on this,” he said, “that women, before they become pregnant, should eat a good diet for weeks or months before they get pregnant. But we know now that it needs to start in adolescence both for men and women.”

Source: Dad’s nutrition affects baby, too; Research shows sperm prompts epigenetic changes

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