Elsevier

Nutrition

Volume 22, Issue 3, March 2006, Pages 327-331
Nutrition

Research brief
Preconceptional fasting of fathers alters serum glucose in offspring of mice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2005.09.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

Maternal nutrition has long-term effects on offspring characteristics. Similar effects mediated through fathers have not been tested.

Methods

Outbred Swiss male mice were fasted one or six times 1 to 4 wk before mating. Offspring were killed at age intervals of 4 to 10 wk and their sera were analyzed for glucose, corticosterone, and insulin-like growth factor-1. Statistical linear mixed effects models were used to determine treatment (paternal diet restriction versus control) differences and possible effects of covariates, including sex, litter membership, and litter size.

Results

Paternal food deprivation resulted in a consistent decrease in average serum glucose in male and female offspring. Significant changes in corticosterone and insulin-like growth factor-1 were found for some groups. The results indicated a male-mediated transgenerational effect on metabolism- and growth-related parameters, in particular glucose.

Conclusions

Effects of paternal nutritional experiences on offspring metabolism, if confirmed, would be novel and could have far-reaching implications in the context of transgenerational effects on chronic diseases.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

To examine effects of paternal food deprivation on offspring, male NIH NCr outbred Swiss mice (8 wk old) were subjected to 24-h fasts with free access to water. To minimize the effect of coincident variables, untreated controls were maintained in close parallel, including initial randomization into groups, side-by-side housing, killed at the same times, and concurrent sample analysis. All mice were fed a standard NIH-31 modified block diet (Purina Co., St. Louis, MO, USA) and were killed in a

Results

Fasting of male mice, of the same ages as those used for breeding, for 24 h resulted in an average 47% decrease in serum glucose and an average 10.5-fold increase in serum corticosterone (data not shown). Breeding performance was not affected. For both male and female offspring of the fathers that were fasted once, there were highly significant decreases in average serum glucose levels compared with those in controls at 10 wk of age (Table 1). In male offspring of the fasted fathers, there was

Discussion

The firmest, most convincing result of this study was decreased serum glucose in the 10-wk-old male offspring of the fasted fathers. This was seen, with a high degree of significance by conservative statistical testing, in these male offspring in both studies. Control glucose values for the males of this age were very similar for both studies. This appears to be a solid result. It is a remarkable finding considering the close regulation of serum glucose characteristic of animals. Although the

Acknowledgments

The authors express appreciation to Rick Klabansky for data entry and to Yih-Horng Shiao and David Berrigan for critical reading of the manuscript and useful suggestions.

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