Monday, December 18, 2023

Men should quit alcohol 3 months before starting a family, study suggests

What about women? Not all women are sober all the time! This is sex discrimination! (just kidding)

But it is good advice for any would be parents if the woman and man stop drinking any alcohol before conception.

"A study has found that it takes longer than previously thought for the negative effects of alcohol consumption to leave a man’s sperm. Given the link between alcohol and birth defects, the findings are important for potential fathers to factor in when they’re considering starting a family. ..."

"... work is vital to improving pregnancy outcomes by changing the conversation about who is responsible for alcohol-related birth defects, since society has historically placed all blame on mothers, even when they do not consume alcohol during their pregnancy. ..."

From the abstract:
"Background
Chronic preconception paternal alcohol use adversely modifies the sperm epigenome, inducing fetoplacental and craniofacial growth defects in the offspring of exposed males. A crucial outstanding question in the field of paternal epigenetic inheritance concerns the resilience of the male germline and its capacity to recover and correct sperm-inherited epigenetic errors after stressor withdrawal.
Objectives
We set out to determine if measures of the sperm-inherited epigenetic program revert to match the control treatment 1 month after withdrawing the daily alcohol treatments.
Materials and methods
Using a voluntary access model, we exposed C57BL/6J males to 6% or 10% alcohol for 10 weeks, withdrew the alcohol treatments for 4 weeks, and used RNA sequencing to examine gene expression patterns in the caput section of the epididymis. We then compared the abundance of sperm small RNA species between treatments.
Results
In the caput section of the epididymis, chronic alcohol exposure induced changes in the transcriptional control of genetic pathways related to the mitochondrial function, oxidative phosphorylation, and the generalized stress response (EIF2 signaling). Subsequent analysis identified region-specific, alcohol-induced changes in mitochondrial DNA copy number across the epididymis, which correlated with increases in the mitochondrial DNA content of alcohol-exposed sperm. Notably, in the corpus section of the epididymis, increases in mitochondrial DNA copy number persisted 1 month after alcohol cessation. Analysis of sperm noncoding RNAs between control and alcohol-exposed males 1 month after alcohol withdrawal revealed a ∼100-fold increase in mir-196a, a microRNA induced as part of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-driven cellular antioxidant response.
Discussion and conclusion
Our data reveal that alcohol-induced epididymal mitochondrial dysfunction and differences in sperm noncoding RNA content persist after alcohol withdrawal. Further, differences in mir-196a and sperm mitochondrial DNA copy number may serve as viable biomarkers of adverse alterations in the sperm-inherited epigenetic program."

Men should quit alcohol 3 months before starting a family, study suggests

Texas A&M Researcher Says Men Should Abstain From Drinking At Least Three Months Prior To Conceiving In examining the effects of paternal alcohol consumption on fetal alcohol syndrome, a groundbreaking new study reveals that it can take over a month for negative alcohol effects to wear off.

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