Conditions in a person’s home, family, and community affect their ability to stay healthy.
Scientists who study these social determinants of health try to understand whether nature or nurture has a stronger effect on a person’s ability to fight disease.
Although researchers have long recognized that a father’s alcohol abuse negatively affects the mental health and social development of his children, it has been unclear whether a father’s alcohol consumption actually has lasting biological effects on the physical health of his offspring .
Recently published research shows that, in fact, by both parents it has a lasting effect on the next generation, making their offspring age faster and become more prone to disease.
According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 11 percent of US adults suffer from an alcohol use disorder. Excessive alcohol consumption causes multiple health problems, including liver disease, heart problems, cognitive decline, and accelerated aging.
Parents can pass these health problems on to their children. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders refer to a wide range of alcohol-related physical, developmental, and behavioral impairments that affect up to 1 in 20 US students.
Parental alcohol consumption has a lasting effect on the next generation
Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders experience early onset of adult diseases, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Cardiovascular disease first appears during adolescence for people with these disorders, while the rest of the population is usually affected in their 40s and 50s.
Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are also more likely to be hospitalized and have a 40% shorter lifespan than children without these conditions.
However, it was not clear whether these health problems were due to life circumstances – people with fetals have high rates of psychiatric disorders, which cause stress that makes them more susceptible to aging and disease – or whether their parents’ substance use directly cause lasting negative effects on their health.
In other words, can a parent’s alcohol abuse before conception directly influence the physical health and lifespan of their offspring?
In the study, researchers used a mouse model to measure the effects of alcohol consumption by the mother, father, or both parents around conception on aging and chronic disease in their offspring. The mice chose when and how much alcohol to drink, he writes.
Nearly 11% of US adults suffer from an alcohol use disorder
Both paternal and maternal drinking were found to cause harmful changes in the mitochondria of the offspring. Mitochondria – often called the battery of the cell – control many aspects of aging and health. Like a cell phone battery, mitochondria deteriorate over time and cause cells to lose their ability to repair damage and control metabolism.
Mitochondria are more than the powerhouses of cells. Experiments on mice show that it causes a defect in mitochondrial function that first appears during fetal development and persists into adulthood, causing the offspring to age more quickly.
For example, paternal alcohol exposure caused a two-fold increase in age-related liver disease, suggesting that parental alcohol consumption—especially the father’s—may in fact have significant implications for aging and age-related disease. .
Importantly, it was found that when both parents drank alcohol, the effects on their offspring were worse than when only one parent drank alcohol.
