Are you like these rat dads?

Watch what you eat if you want to have kids. Here is the first study, albeit with rats, to show a link between a dad’s obesity, and the insulin and glucose metabolism of his daughter.

Australian researchers fed some male rats a high-fat diet and kept others on a healthy diet. Both groups of rats mated with females, all of whom ate a healthy diet. Then the researchers studied the resulting female pups.

The pups born to overweight fathers were smaller than those with healthy fathers. When they grew up, the daughters of overweight fathers had the same amount of fat, muscle mass, triglycerides and leptin as daughters of healthy fathers. But there were differences – the rats whose dads ate the high-fat chow had impaired glucose tolerance and insulin secretion. The problems started earlier than for rats with healthy dads, and they got worse over time.

[From What a dad eats can affect his daughter’s health, researchers say – Los Angeles Times]

While there have been studies that show this to be true for moms, here is another link to the importance of dads in the picture.