Parental Prepuberty Overweight and Offspring Lung Function
Marianne Lønnebotn1,2, Lucia Calciano3, Ane Johannessen1
1Centre for International Health, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway.
Nutrients
|April 12, 2022
Summary
Paternal overweight before puberty may negatively impact sons' lung function, specifically reducing forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC). This effect is partly mediated by sons' adult height, not prepubertal weight.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Health
- Pediatric Health
- Pulmonology
- Genetics and Epigenetics
Background:
- Parental overweight during puberty is linked to offspring asthma.
- The impact of parental overweight on adult offspring lung function remains understudied.
- Lung function is a critical indicator of respiratory and overall health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate potential causal effects of parental overweight on adult offspring lung function.
- To examine paternal and maternal lines separately.
- To explore the role of offspring sex as a moderator and offspring height/weight as mediators.
Main Methods:
- Utilized counterfactual-based multi-group mediation analyses.
- Included 929 offspring (aged 18-54) and their parents (308 fathers, 388 mothers).
- Assessed offspring sex, prepubertal overweight, and adult height as potential mediators/moderators.
- Addressed unknown confounding using simulation analyses.
Main Results:
- Fathers' prepubertal overweight showed a negative indirect effect on sons' forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC), mediated by sons' adult height.
- Fathers' prepubertal overweight also had a negative direct effect on sons' FVC.
- No significant effects of mothers' prepubertal overweight on offspring lung function were observed.
- Effects on FEV1/FVC ratio were not statistically significant.
Conclusions:
- Paternal overweight, beginning before puberty, appears to causally reduce FEV1 and FVC in adult sons.
- The observed effects are partly mediated by sons' adult height.
- Maternal overweight did not demonstrate a significant impact on offspring lung function in this study.
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