Men contemplating fatherhood may need to consider assessing their gut health after researchers found a link between a father’s gut microbiota and the health of their offspring.
Using mice, researchers at The Florey examined how depleted gut microbiota in male mice influences offspring’s physical and mental health.
The researchers gave male mice oral antibiotics to deplete their gut microbiota and then examined their effects.
What was discovered was that oral antibiotics depleted the gut microbiota of male mice, which caused changes to their sperm. This, in turn, caused changes to parts of the genetic material, known as non-coding RNAs or piRNA. Non-coding RNAs are integral to the regulation of offspring development, body weight, and behaviour....
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