Over the past couple of decades it has been made evident that what we do in our lives prior to conceiving a child can in fact affect the mental and physical health of our children. A new study that was recently published suggested that there could be a correlation between teenage binge-drinking and brain function of future offspring. Dr.Pak, his PhD student Anna Dorothea and a few of his colleagues conducted a study on adolescent male and female rats. They exposed a group of adolescent rats to alcohol in amounts comparable to six binge-drinking episodes.
Once these rats were drunk they waited some time. It was important that the affects of the alcohol consumption in the rats went away before any real observations were made. They wanted to really dig into the long term affects of such actions. Once sober the female and male rats mated. All throughout pregnancy the female rats remained sober. Once the babies were born the alcohol rats were compared to a control group of rats that had not been exposed to binge-drinking. Researchers then examined genes in the hypothalamus; a region of the brain where many functions take place including reproduction, response to stress, sleep cycles and food intake. As they were examining the hypothalamus it was seen that there were 159 changes in the offspring of binge-drinking mothers as well as 93 gene changes in the offspring of binge-drinking fathers. In total there were about 244 gene changes in the offspring of mothers and fathers who were both exposed to binge drinking.
This study has been one of the few to show a molecular pathway between teenage binge-drinking and permanent gene expression changes potentially through epigenetic modifications to specific genes. Those Epigenetic modifications can therefore be transmitted to future generations. This test was done in rats so it still remains unclear as to how the results apply to humans. But from what we know, humans are pretty close to rodents on the phylogeny tree. It wouldn't spark a surprise to me if binge drinking actually does have similar affects to the offspring of humans. In today's day and age drinking is an actual epidemic in adolescence. The choices teens make might actually want to be reconsidered after this study.
Once these rats were drunk they waited some time. It was important that the affects of the alcohol consumption in the rats went away before any real observations were made. They wanted to really dig into the long term affects of such actions. Once sober the female and male rats mated. All throughout pregnancy the female rats remained sober. Once the babies were born the alcohol rats were compared to a control group of rats that had not been exposed to binge-drinking. Researchers then examined genes in the hypothalamus; a region of the brain where many functions take place including reproduction, response to stress, sleep cycles and food intake. As they were examining the hypothalamus it was seen that there were 159 changes in the offspring of binge-drinking mothers as well as 93 gene changes in the offspring of binge-drinking fathers. In total there were about 244 gene changes in the offspring of mothers and fathers who were both exposed to binge drinking.
This study has been one of the few to show a molecular pathway between teenage binge-drinking and permanent gene expression changes potentially through epigenetic modifications to specific genes. Those Epigenetic modifications can therefore be transmitted to future generations. This test was done in rats so it still remains unclear as to how the results apply to humans. But from what we know, humans are pretty close to rodents on the phylogeny tree. It wouldn't spark a surprise to me if binge drinking actually does have similar affects to the offspring of humans. In today's day and age drinking is an actual epidemic in adolescence. The choices teens make might actually want to be reconsidered after this study.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161114140611.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3930730/
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