Alcohol consumption before conception could accelerate a child’s aging – new research on mice

The conditions in a person's home, family, and community affect their ability to stay healthy. Scientists who study these social determinants of health try to determine whether nature or nurture has a stronger influence on a person's ability to fight disease.

I am a developmental physiologist who studies how alcohol consumption affects fetal development and lifelong health. Although researchers have long known that fathers' alcohol abuse negatively affects their children's mental health and social development, it is not clear whether fathers' alcohol consumption has lasting biological effects on their offspring's physical health.

Recently published research from my lab shows that chronic alcohol consumption by both parents has lasting effects on the next generation, causing their offspring to age faster and be more susceptible to disease.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 11% of adults in the United States have an alcohol use disorder. Heavy drinking causes numerous health problems, including liver disease, heart problems, declining cognitive function, and accelerated aging.

Parents can pass these health problems on to their children. Fetal alcohol syndrome disorders refer to a broad range of alcohol-related physical, developmental, and behavioral deficits that affect up to 1 in 20 U.S. school children.

Children with fetal alcohol syndrome suffer from adult diseases earlier, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Cardiovascular disease first appears in people with these disorders during puberty, while the rest of the population is typically affected in their 40s and 50s. Children with fetal alcohol syndrome also have more frequent hospitalizations and a 40% shorter life expectancy than children without these conditions.

However, it is unclear whether these health problems are due to life circumstances—people with fetal alcohol syndrome often have mental disorders that cause stress that makes them more vulnerable to aging and disease—or whether their parents' substance use directly has lasting negative effects on their health. In other words, can a parent's alcohol abuse before conception directly affect the physical health and life expectancy of their offspring?

Mom and Dad drink

In our study, my colleagues and I used a mouse model to measure the effects of alcohol consumption by the mother, father, or both parents at the time of conception on the aging and chronic diseases of their offspring. The mice decided when and how much alcohol to drink.

We found that both paternal and maternal alcohol consumption causes harmful changes to their offspring's mitochondria. Mitochondria – often called the battery of the cell – control many aspects of aging and health. Like a cell phone battery, mitochondria deteriorate over time, causing cells to lose their ability to repair damage and control metabolism.

Our experiments in mice show that paternal alcohol consumption leads to a defect in mitochondrial function that first appears during fetal development and persists into adulthood, causing offspring to age more rapidly. For example, paternal alcohol consumption resulted in a doubling of age-related liver disease, suggesting that parental alcohol consumption – particularly paternal – may have significant effects on aging and age-related diseases.

Importantly, we found that the effects on offspring were worse when both parents drank alcohol than when only one parent drank alcohol. For example, we observed three times greater age-related scarring of the liver when both parents drank alcohol.

Treatment of fetal alcohol syndrome

People with fetal alcohol syndrome face lifelong challenges, including problems with hand-eye coordination and memory and attention difficulties.

Early educational interventions for children with fetal alcohol syndrome, such as using visual and auditory materials instead of print, can provide additional structure and facilitate learning.

Although my team and I have studied chronic alcohol consumption, we don't know whether moderate drinking also causes mitochondrial problems. Nor do we know whether these same effects occur in people who do not have a diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome but whose parents drank heavily. Whether paternal alcohol consumption affects human embryonic development is still unclear, although recent studies suggest it does.

The next step will be to investigate whether interventions that focus on mitochondrial health, such as exercise and special diets, can improve the health of people with fetal alcohol syndrome.