Inherited vice not very nice
Study questions genetic drug tolerance
Men who smoke cigarettes could be putting their future children at risk by building up an inherited tolerance to drugs, making doctors question whether their offspring could be less responsive to other drugs like antibiotics, according to new research from University of Massachusetts Medical School.
“We looked to see how this drug exposure is transferred from one generation to another generation,” said Dr. Markus Vallaster, a former research associate at UMass Medical Center in Worcester who led the study. “That’s why it’s quite fascinating — it’s not just the mother with direct links to the placenta, but also what dad did in his past.”
Vallaster and his group tested hundreds of mice over a six-year period, exposing the males to nicotine before reproducing, according to the study published today in the journal eLife.
The mice born to those who were exposed showed a higher tolerance for not just nicotine, but cocaine.
Many drugs — those both illicit and life-saving — are metabolized by the same large protein in the liver. If there is a general drug resistance, researchers question whether there would be a similar response to treatments like antibiotics, antidepressants and chemotherapy.
“It would also be reasonable to think other drugs would be less effective,” Vallaster said.
Past studies have found links to paternal nicotine use and health risks in future children. But this is the only study that has found a higher tolerance for other drugs as well.
They bolster an idea that — until recently — was considered outrageous, said UMass Medical biochemistry professor Dr. Oliver Rando.
“About 10 years ago, the first papers started coming out saying that the environment in one generation can affect health-related issues in the next,” Rando said. “This is another piece of evidence for something that was once considered heretical.”
The researchers will continue the National Institutes of Healthfunded study, and look more specifically at resistance to other types of drugs, like popular pain-relievers.
Although the effects have been seen in mice, humans process nicotine differently, and more rigorous studies will be needed in the future, Rando said.
But the concept needs to be more broadly understood to show that smoking has more far-reaching effects than people realize.
“Even though there have been many studies along these lines,” Rando said, “I still don’t think it’s really sunk into public perception.”