Smoking is known to be an act that does not benefit anyone: first-hand and second-hand smoke can seriously harm the health of smokers and passive smokers, and in addition to increasing the risk of respiratory diseases and even lung cancer, it also increases the risk of dementia.
Previous studies have found that healthy non-smokers have significant changes in gene expression in nasal epithelial cells after inhaling third-hand smoke for three hours. It alters pathways associated with oxidative stress, which can damage DNA, and cancer is a potential long-term consequence.
The impact of these hazards may not occur for a long time, long or short, but it is only a few decades long. There is also a hazard that may affect more than a hundred years.
In the early morning of January 22, Beijing time, in a new study published in Scientific Reports, a research team led by the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom reported that if a boy starts smoking before puberty, then his granddaughter or great-granddaughter may be a fat person.
Previous experimental studies have shown that males' exposure to certain chemicals before reproduction can have an effect on their offspring. However, there have been debates about whether this phenomenon will also occur in humans and whether there are significant effects.
Early studies have found an association between a father who starts smoking regularly before puberty (before the age of 11) and an increase in body fat in his son (not daughter).
To investigate the effects of smoking in humans before puberty on offspring, the researchers looked at data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which began in the 1990s and involved more than 14,000 participants.
Using recently collected data from participants' grandfathers and great-grandfathers through a questionnaire, the researchers extended this analysis to earlier generations to compare those who were in prepuberty (
They found that in the two ages analyzed (17 and 24), there was evidence of a significant increase in fat mass in granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
Specifically, compared to grandfathers who started smoking later in childhood (13-16 years), grandfathers who started smoking regularly before puberty, his granddaughters (not grandchildren) had excess body fat at both ages: the average difference at age 17 was 3.54 kg; the average difference at age 24 was 5.49 kg.
When the grandfather's father started smoking before puberty, their great-granddaughter (not the great-grandson) had too much body fat: the average difference in body fat was 5.35 kg at age 17 and 6.1 kg at age 24.
In the sensitivity analysis, the researchers did not find a similar association with degreased body weight.
To determine whether these results were due to later generations starting smoking before puberty, they removed people who smoked regularly from later generations before age 13 in further analysis. The results of the analysis are similar.
Since no such significant effects were observed in male offspring, the researchers say further research is needed to confirm whether these results are also present in other longitudinal studies and studies of intergenerational effects.
Professor Jean Golding, corresponding author of the study and in the Department of Population Health Sciences, said: "This study provides us with two important results. First, before puberty, a boy's exposure to specific chemicals may have an impact on his future generations. Second, one of the reasons why children are overweight may have less to do with their current diet and exercise, but with the lifestyle of their grandparents or the persistence of associated factors over the years. ”
If these associations are confirmed in other datasets or biomarkers, the researchers say, it would be the first time humans have revealed the intergenerational effects of environmental exposures on four generations. These data will provide a basis for revealing the origins of potentially important intergenerational relationships.
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Source | China Biotechnology Network
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