Grant: Project Grant

Maternal factors, including obesity, increase the risk of obesity in her offspring - independent of postnatal diet and lifestyle - in a sex-specific manner where males and females show different metabolic outcomes. Some of this risk is due to poor placental function, and whether placenta is associated to a male or female fetus ("placental sex"). While decades of work have focused on the impact of maternal obesity on sex -specific placental function and offspring disease risk, the father has been largely overlooked. The father contributes not only genes to the embryo and fetus, but also contributes to the formation of the placenta and might even control how the placenta functions. We now have data that paternal obesity, like maternal obesity, impacts placental development and influences the way in which the fetus develops and increases the risk of metabolic complications in his offspring (not unlike maternal impacts). Importantly these outcomes are sex specific - where female placenta and female fetuses appear more vulnerable than males. These sex-specific risk factors depend on whether the mother or the father is obese. In our study we will investigate how the father and mother independently and together, affect the placenta of male and female fetuses and offspring and determine if daughters or sons are more or less affected. We will also for the first time determine whether these sex-specific outcomes are magnified if both parents are obese. We will also determine if we can improve outcomes by using a readily available nutritional intervention.