Carslake David, Pinger Pia R, Romundstad Pål, Davey Smith George
MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 2;11(12):e0166952. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0166952. eCollection 2016.
Recently it has been suggested that rearing conditions during preadolescence in one generation may affect health outcomes in subsequent generations. Such parental effects, potentially induced by epigenetic modifications in the germ line, have attracted considerable attention because of their implications for public health and social policies. Yet, to date, evidence in humans has been rare due to data limitations and much further investigation in large studies is required. The aim of this paper is to reproduce and extend a recent study which found that paternal smoking before age 11 was associated with elevated body mass index (BMI) among male offspring in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Using the Nord-Trøndelag Health (HUNT) Study, we find that paternal smoking during pre-adolescence (<age 11) is not reliably or strongly associated with BMI among sons, with an estimated association close to zero (mean difference in kg m-2 (95% CI) was -0.18 (-1.75, 1.39) for sons aged 12-19 and 0.22 (-0.53, 0.97) for all ages). Among daughters, early-onset paternal smoking was imprecisely associated with an elevated BMI (mean difference was 1.50 (0.00, 3.00) for daughters aged 12-19 and 0.97 (0.06, 1.87) for all ages). Our results do not support a son-specific association of the magnitude reported in the ALSPAC study and we consider it improbable that early onset paternal smoking should influence specifically sons' BMI in one population and daughters' BMI in another. However, despite our considerable sample size (>45,000 offspring), we cannot rule out a weaker association, perhaps common to sons and daughters, which would be consistent with the ALSPAC study. Alternatively, we discuss whether confounding, chance in parallel tests, or sample selection effects might explain the observed associations of early paternal smoking with offspring BMI.
最近有人提出，一代人青春期前的养育条件可能会影响后代的健康结果。这种潜在由种系表观遗传修饰诱导的父母效应，因其对公共卫生和社会政策的影响而备受关注。然而，迄今为止，由于数据限制，人类方面的证据很少，需要在大型研究中进行更多的调查。本文的目的是重现并扩展最近的一项研究，该研究发现，在阿冯父母与儿童纵向研究（ALSPAC）中，11岁之前父亲吸烟与男性后代体重指数（BMI）升高有关。使用北特伦德拉格健康（HUNT）研究，我们发现青春期前（<11岁）父亲吸烟与儿子的BMI之间没有可靠或强烈的关联，估计关联接近零（12 - 19岁儿子的体重指数平均差异（95%置信区间）为-0.18（-1.75，1.39）kg/m²，所有年龄儿子的平均差异为0.22（-0.53，0.97）kg/m²）。在女儿中，父亲早发吸烟与BMI升高的关联不精确（12 - 19岁女儿的平均差异为1.50（0.00，3.00）kg/m²，所有年龄女儿的平均差异为0.97（0.06，1.87）kg/m²）。我们的结果不支持ALSPAC研究中所报告的那种特定于儿子的关联程度，并且我们认为父亲早发吸烟不太可能在一个人群中专门影响儿子的BMI，而在另一个人群中专门影响女儿的BMI。然而，尽管我们的样本量相当大（>45,000名后代），但我们不能排除一种较弱的关联，这种关联可能对儿子和女儿都普遍存在，这与ALSPAC研究结果一致。另外，我们讨论了混杂因素、平行测试中的偶然性或样本选择效应是否可以解释观察到的父亲早发吸烟与后代BMI之间的关联。
