RT Journal Article
T1 Parents’ smoking onset before conception as related to body mass index and fat mass in adult offspring: Findings from the RHINESSA generation study
A1 Mørkve Knudsen, Gerd Toril
A1 Dharmage, Shyamali
A1 Janson, Christer
A1 Sánchez Ramos, José Luis
AB Emerging evidence suggests that parents’ preconception exposures may influence off-spring health. We aimed to investigate maternal and paternal smoking onset in specific timewindows in relation to offspring body mass index (BMI) and fat mass index (FMI). We inves-tigated fathers (n = 2111) and mothers (n = 2569) aged 39–65 years, of the populationbased RHINE and ECRHS studies, and their offspring aged 18–49 years (n = 6487, meanage 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 measuresin a subsample. Associations with parental smoking were analysed with generalized linearregression adjusting for parental education and clustering by study centre and family. Inter-actions between offspring sex were analysed, as was mediation by parental pack years,parental BMI, offspring smoking and offspring birthweight. Fathers’ smoking onset beforeconception of the offspring (onset  15 years) was associated with higher BMI in the off-spring when adult (β 0.551, 95%CI: 0.174–0.929, p = 0.004). Mothers’ preconception andpostnatal 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 off-spring birth: β2.257, 95%CI 1.220–3.294). However, mediation analysis indicated that theseeffects were fully mediated by parents’ postnatal pack years, and partially mediated byparents’ BMI and offspring smoking. Regarding FMI, sons of smoking fathers also hadhigher 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 asso-ciation between maternal smoking and offspring fat mass. We found that parents’ smokingbefore conception was associated with higher BMI in offspring when they reached adult-hood, but that these effects were mediated through parents’ pack years, suggesting thatcumulative smoking exposure during offspring’s childhood may elicit long lasting effects onoffspring BMI.
PB Public Library of Science
SN 1932-6203
YR 2020
FD 2020-07
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18917
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/18917
LA eng
NO Knudsen, G. T. M., Dharmage, S., Janson, C. ... Sánchez Ramos, J. L. (2020). Parents’ smoking onset before conception as related to body mass index and fat mass in adult offspring: Findings from the RHINESSA generation study. PLOS ONE, 15(7), e0235632. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235632
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 13 jul 2026