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TOPLINE:

Paternal obesity is associated with an impaired cardiometabolic profile — including high body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and insulin resistance — in offspring conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART).

METHODOLOGY:

• While altered metabolic profiles have been previously observed in offspring conceived by ART, the effect of paternal obesity in ART hasn't been assessed.
• The researchers evaluated 2047 children born from singleton deliveries (4-10 years old; 49.39% boys) conceived via ART between April 2007 and September 2014. There were 2890 follow-up visits between June 2014 and October 2019.
• Paternal BMI was used to categorize offspring into those who had fathers with obesity (n = 506; BMI, ≥28 kg/m²), overweight (n = 1056; BMI, 24-27.9 kg/m²), or underweight (n = 56; BMI, <18.5 kg/m²). The group with normal weight fathers (n = 1272; BMI, 18.5-23.9 kg/m²) was used as a reference.
• Children were further divided into high- and low-energy–intake groups on the basis of a 7-day recall of children's food intake acquired through a food frequency questionnaire.
• Age- and sex-specific z-scores for BMI, blood pressure, insulin resistance, and lipid profile were used to compare the cardiometabolic profiles in the different groups.

TAKEAWAY:

• Paternal BMI was associated with the offspring's cardiometabolic parameters (P < .01) such as BMI, waist to height ratio, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, fasting insulin, and insulin resistance.
• A single-unit increase in paternal BMI levels corresponded to a 0.16-unit increase in the offspring BMI levels.
• Mediation analyses suggested that offspring BMI might mediate 57.48%-94.75% of the associations between paternal BMI and cardiometabolic outcomes — including z-scores for systolic blood pressure, insulin, and insulin resistance — of the offspring.
• The z-scores for BMI and the waist-to-height ratio were higher in offspring born to fathers with obesity than in those born to fathers with normal weight regardless of the energy intake of the offspring (P < .004, Bonferroni correction).

IN PRACTICE:

"A reasonably lower-energy intake and BMI monitoring are possible interventions to attenuate the cardiometabolic risks in the offspring of obese fathers," wrote the authors.

SOURCE:

The investigation, led by Bingqian Zhang, MD, PhD, Institute of Women, Children and Reproductive Health, Shandong University, Weihai, China, was published online in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

LIMITATIONS:

The relatively small sample size of the study may be inconsistent with national standards. Offspring were selected from a particular age group when blood samples were available, which could create a selection bias. Moreover, there was no clear distinction between the familial history of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in the enrolled children.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences, National Special Support Program for High-level Talents, and Taishan Scholars Program for Young Experts of Shandong Province. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.