Pregnant drinkers affect future grandchildren
Pregnant mothers who drink alcohol increase the chances that their children and their grandchildren may take the bottle, too, says a new study from Binghamton University.
In the study, pregnant rats received the equivalent of one glass of wine, four days in a row, at the equivalent of the second trimester in humans. The offspring were then tested for water or alcohol consumption. The results suggest that if a mother drinks during pregnancy, even just a little bit, she increases the risk that her progeny will become alcoholic.
“Our findings show that in the rat, when a mother consumes the equivalent of one glass of wine four times during the pregnancy, her offspring and grand-offspring, up to the third generation, show increased alcohol preference and less sensitivity to alcohol,” said lead author Nicole Cameron, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, “Thus, the offspring are more likely to develop alcoholism. This paper is the first to demonstrate trans-generational effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on alcohol-related behavior in offspring.”
Cameron and her team recently received a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant to continue the research on the transgenerational effects of gestational alcohol exposure.
“We now need to identify how this effect is pass through multiple generations by investigating the effects alcohol has on the genome and epigenome (molecules that control gene translation),” said Cameron.
The study, “Trans-generational transmission of the effect of gestational ethanol exposure on ethanol use-related behavior,” was published February 15 in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
