When planning future fatherhood, it is not only the mother who must lead healthy living habits to have a healthy baby, but also the man must modify his way of life, because his genetic information is inherited by his son.
A study conducted with mice by researchers from the Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai (China), concluded that the greater the stress of the future dad, the greater the risk of diabetes in the child. This is because stress causes changes in the sperm gene involved in the control of blood glucose levels.
The scientists dedicated themselves to investigating the association between psychological stress and the incidence of diabetes, and to observe how this association could be transmitted through generations. And they found that men with higher levels of psychological stress they had children with higher sugar levels in blood
To demonstrate this, they subjected mice to high levels of stress (they confined the males in plastic buckets for two hours a day over a period of two weeks) and observed that their offspring showed abnormally high blood glucose levels.
This is because "stress causes an increase in glucocorticoids, hormones that in turn cause an increase in methyl groups in the 'Sfmbt2' gene of mice sperm. And although these methyl groups do not alter the genetic content - this that is, the DNA- of 'Sfmbt2', does influence how it is finally expressed, "the study authors said.
The good news is that identifying this gene would allow scientists to counteract its effects through the inoculation of a molecule that blocks them.
Anyway, if you are planning to have a baby, it is advisable to lead a healthy life, put aside harmful habits and stress, if possible. Because it is scientifically proven that stress affects the genetic information that our children inherit.
