The choices of the father

There is a phrase in the biblical book of Exodus that goes, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Stern words to be sure and they have been translated into the more pithy and popular, “The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons.” However you phrase it though, the message is that subsequent generations will pay the price for the decisions of the fathers and new evidence is that at a genetic level, this is right.

In this study the researchers looked at two groups of families. The first group had a low yearly income, and the second group had a high yearly income. Income was chosen as a criterion because it is usually associated with other lifestyle choices of the parents. For instance, fathers in the low income group were more often cigarette smokers than fathers in the high income group. The researchers looked for DNA mutations in the children and found that they were more frequent in the group with low income fathers than in the group of high income fathers.

So what the researchers found is that gene mutations caused by a father’s lifestyle can be passed on to his children, even if those mutations occurred before conception. Additionally, these mutations in the germ-line are present in all cells of the children, including their own reproductive cells. In other words the lifestyle choices a father makes has the potential to affect the DNA of multiple generations and not just his immediate children.

Or you could say that the choices of the fathers will trickle through the generations like a stream through the soil of the future. Yes, your choices don’t just affect you; if you reproduce they impact the entire gene pool. That puts a new perspective on “It’s my life!”, doesn’t it?