Dad's Diet Shapes the Future: How Paternal Nutrition Impacts Placental Development and Childhood Metabolic Health.

ABSTRACT: Early-life programming is a major determinant of lifelong metabolic health, yet current preventive strategies focus almost exclusively on maternal factors. Emerging experimental and preclinical data reveal that a father's diet before conception, particularly high-fat intake, also shapes offspring physiology. Here, we synthesize the latest evidence on how such diets remodel the sperm epigenome during two discrete windows of vulnerability: (i) testicular spermatogenesis, via DNA methylation and histone modifications, and (ii) post-testicular epididymal maturation, where small non-coding RNAs are selectively gained. We examine how these epigenetic signals influence pregnancy, placental development, and ultimately, metabolic trajectories in progeny. To extend published work, we sourced publicl

SUBMITTER: Skerrett-Byrne DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12643195 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature