Parental Vitamin D Deficiency Increases BP in Offspring

Do we really know the potential effects of maternal, and paternal, diets on offspring genotype and phenotype? In this podcast, Associate Editor Nancy Kanagy (University of New Mexico School of Medicine) interviews lead author Rudolf de Boer (University Medical Center Groningen) and content expert Mingyu Liang (Medical College of Wisconsin) about the exciting new work by Meems et al which investigated the cardiovascular effects on offspring born to vitamin D deficient parents. While the initial idea for this work by de Boer and colleagues sprang from the well-documented clinical observation that Dutch people born to parents who survived the post- World War II famine have excess cardiovascular risk, the study opens the door to discuss vitamin D and other dietary deficiency multi-generational effects on offspring. Is there a consensus among researchers on how to analyze epigenetic methylation data? Listen and find out.

 

Laura M. G. Meems, Hasan Mahmud, Hendrik Buikema, Jörg Tost, Sven Michel, Janny Takens, Rikst N. Verkaik-Schakel, Inge Vreeswijk-Baudoin, Irene V. Mateo-Leach, Pim van der Harst, Torsten Plösch, Rudolf A. de Boer Parental vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is associated with increased blood pressure in offspring via Panx1 hypermethylation Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published online December 1, 2016. DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00141.2016