ArticlePloS one2020
Parents' smoking onset before conception as related to body mass index and fat mass in adult offspring: Findings from the RHINESSA generation study.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Paternal preconception modifiable risk factors for adverse pregnancy and offspring outcomes: a review of contemporary evidence from observational studies.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- The Role of Fathers in the Intergenerational Transmission of Obesity.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Beyond Genes: Mechanistic and Epidemiological Insights into Paternal Environmental Influence on Offspring Health.Current environmental health reports · 2025Review
- Overweight/Obesity and Ancestral Environmental Smoking Exposures: A Summary of Results from the ALSPAC Cohort.The Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2025Article
- Multifaceted paternal exposures before conception and their epigenetic impact on offspring.Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics · 2024Review
- Unveiling the hidden risk: paternal smoking and alcohol exposure prior to conception as independent factors for allergic rhinitis in children.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Article
- Fathers' preconception smoking and offspring DNA methylation.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Article
- Developmental origins of health and disease: Impact of paternal nutrition and lifestyle.Pediatric investigation · 2023Review
- Early-life exposure to tobacco and childhood adiposity: Identifying windows of susceptibility.Pediatric obesity · 2022Article
- Cohort profile: the multigeneration Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia (RHINESSA) cohort.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Prenatal and prepubertal exposures to tobacco smoke in men may cause lower lung function in future offspring: a three-generation study using a causal modelling approach.The European respiratory journal · 2021Article
- Exposures during the prepuberty period and future offspring's health: evidence from human cohort studies†.Biology of reproduction · 2021Review
- Ancestral smoking and developmental outcomes: a review of publications from a population birth cohort†.Biology of reproduction · 2021Review
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 12 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Emerging evidence suggests that parents' preconception exposures may influence offspring health. We aimed to investigate maternal and paternal smoking onset in specific time windows in relation to offspring body mass index (BMI) and fat mass index (FMI). We investigated fathers (n = 2111) and mothers (n = 2569) aged 39-65 years, of the population based RHINE and ECRHS studies, and their offspring aged 18-49 years (n = 6487, mean age 29.6 years) who participated in the RHINESSA study. BMI was calculated from self-reported height and weight, and FMI was estimated from bioelectrical impedance measures in a subsample. Associations with parental smoking were analysed with generalized linear regression adjusting for parental education and clustering by study centre and family. Interactions between offspring sex were analysed, as was mediation by parental pack years, parental BMI, offspring smoking and offspring birthweight. Fathers' smoking onset before conception of the offspring (onset ≥15 years) was associated with higher BMI in the offspring when adult (β 0.551, 95%CI: 0.174-0.929, p = 0.004). Mothers' preconception and postnatal smoking onset was associated with higher offspring BMI (onset <15 years: β1.161, 95%CI 0.378-1.944; onset ≥15 years: β0.720, 95%CI 0.293-1.147; onset after offspring birth: β2.257, 95%CI 1.220-3.294). However, mediation analysis indicated that these effects were fully mediated by parents' postnatal pack years, and partially mediated by parents' BMI and offspring smoking. Regarding FMI, sons of smoking fathers also had higher fat mass (onset <15 years β1.604, 95%CI 0.269-2.939; onset ≥15 years β2.590, 95%CI 0.544-4.636; and onset after birth β2.736, 95%CI 0.621-4.851). There was no association between maternal smoking and offspring fat mass. We found that parents' smoking before conception was associated with higher BMI in offspring when they reached adulthood, but that these effects were mediated through parents' pack years, suggesting that cumulative smoking exposure during offspring's childhood may elicit long lasting effects on offspring BMI.
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