You Are What Your Dad Ate

Freshly Exhumed writes "What a father eats before his child is conceived may influence the chance a baby will be born with a birth defect, a new study suggests. Much of the focus on how diet relates to birth has been done on moms. A father's diet before conception plays a crucial role in the health of his offspring, researchers in Canada suggest. Sarah Kimmins, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal, said the study focused on vitamin B9, also known as folate, which is found in green leafy vegetables, cereal, fruit and meat. The researchers found that the mouse offspring of folate-deficient fathers had a 30 percent increased risk of birth defects, compared to those offspring who had received a sufficient amount of folate."

Re:Call me paranoid

[dj245]

A lot of studies lately have been finding links between the Father's healthiness and birth defects. Everybody knows that as the age of a mother increases, the risks of potential problems also increases. But now we find that old dads [wikipedia.org] are as bad as, or maybe even worse than, old moms. I can easily see a future where potential dads are given exactly the same nutritional, lifestyle, and age advice as the women. Maybe they will even put us on neonatal vitamins.