Food abundance in men before puberty predicts a range of cancers in grandsons

Denny Vågerö; Agneta Cederström; Gerard J. van den Berg

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-35217-1

Food abundance in men before puberty predicts a range of cancers in grandsons

Denny Vågerö^*, Agneta Cederström, Gerard J. van den Berg

^*Corresponding author for this work

Economics

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Nutritional conditions early in human life may influence phenotypic characteristics in later generations. A male-line transgenerational pathway, triggered by the early environment, has been postulated with support from animal and a small number of human studies. Here we analyse individuals born in Uppsala Sweden 1915–29 with linked data from their children and parents, which enables us to explore the hypothesis that pre-pubertal food abundance may trigger a transgenerational effect on cancer events. We used cancer registry and cause-of-death data to analyse 3422 cancer events in grandchildren (G2) by grandparental (G0) food access. We show that variation in harvests and food access in G0 predicts cancer occurrence in G2 in a specific way: abundance among paternal grandfathers, but not any other grandparent, predicts cancer occurrence in grandsons but not in granddaughters. This male-line response is observed for several groups of cancers, suggesting a general susceptibility, possibly acquired in early embryonic development. We observed no transgenerational influence in the middle generation.

Original language	English
Article number	7507
Pages (from-to)	1-9
Number of pages	9
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35217-1
Publication status	Published - 6 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Vanda Aronsson and Pia Pinger classified the food access of G0 individuals by tracing their birth parishes and performing early analyses of regional harvest variation. Pär Sparén advised on cancer. Mårten Vågerö gave statistical advice. Kristiina Rajaleid kindly commented on our ms. We are grateful to Stefan Einhorn for encouragement and helpful comments at an early stage. Marcus Pembrey generously shared with us his knowledge about epigenetic mechanisms. We thank Herman de Jong, Kerstin Enflo and Jenny Kreuger for advice on the historical context.

Funding Information:
The Swedish Research Council supported the project (K2015-69). D.V. (grant 2016-07148) and A.C. were supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte). G.J.v.B. was supported by the Humboldt Foundation. Open access funding provided by Stockholm University.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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10.1038/s41467-022-35217-1

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title = "Food abundance in men before puberty predicts a range of cancers in grandsons",

abstract = "Nutritional conditions early in human life may influence phenotypic characteristics in later generations. A male-line transgenerational pathway, triggered by the early environment, has been postulated with support from animal and a small number of human studies. Here we analyse individuals born in Uppsala Sweden 1915–29 with linked data from their children and parents, which enables us to explore the hypothesis that pre-pubertal food abundance may trigger a transgenerational effect on cancer events. We used cancer registry and cause-of-death data to analyse 3422 cancer events in grandchildren (G2) by grandparental (G0) food access. We show that variation in harvests and food access in G0 predicts cancer occurrence in G2 in a specific way: abundance among paternal grandfathers, but not any other grandparent, predicts cancer occurrence in grandsons but not in granddaughters. This male-line response is observed for several groups of cancers, suggesting a general susceptibility, possibly acquired in early embryonic development. We observed no transgenerational influence in the middle generation.",

author = "Denny V{\aa}ger{\"o} and Agneta Cederstr{\"o}m and {van den Berg}, {Gerard J.}",

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Food abundance in men before puberty predicts a range of cancers in grandsons

Abstract

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