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Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

nytimes.com

11–20 of 73 posts

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#11
post #9
post #6

Actual title: "Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?" To further quote the article: “My personal opinion is that exercise is probably much more important” than mental stimulation for altering brains and gene expression and potentially even the aptitudes of one’s offspring, Dr. Fischer says. If the author of the article specifically phrased it as a question, let's not jump to making a definitive statement by ch…

I used the title from the NY Times homepage, which at the time of submission had the more definitive version of the title.

We'll update the headline to the current title, then, which is also in the URL.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#12
" mice whose fathers grew in environmentally enriched cage have better LTP". That's basically what the study says, and they attribute it to epigenetic effects through some miRNA. The effect lasted for 1 generation.

How can someone take that, put an image of a human baby and start talking about "smart babies" and "fathers who exercise" is beyond me.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#13
The title makes it sound like a dull statistical correlation was found in some sociology report, but they did some actual measuring. From the report summary:

> We show that this effect is mediated through sperm RNA and especially miRs 212/132. In conclusion, our study reports intergenerational inheritance of an acquired cognitive benefit and points to specific miRs as candidates mechanistically involved in this type of transmission.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)304...

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#14

Correlation implied as causation. Here is another correlation into causation article linking cardiovascular fitness to IQ[0] Another way to look at it can be from the per-capita relation of economic class to fitness[1]. It is entirely possible that, because people higher up the economic ladder are more likely to be fit, and because they are more likely to receive better prenatal care, generally have better nutrition,…

[deleted]

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#15
Most people don't exercise because no one is paying them to exercise. If a government wants healthy people, they should pay up $100 per hour to just exercise.

I think this is the conspiracy of rich people to make poor people fat so that they get sick and rich people sell medicines, fast food, and garcinia combogia, gym membership (which is just another name for drugs like cocaine, meth etc.... but licensed and regulated)

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#16

Most people don't exercise because no one is paying them to exercise. If a government wants healthy people, they should pay up $100 per hour to just exercise. I think this is the conspiracy of rich people to make poor people fat so that they get sick and rich people sell medicines, fast food, and garcinia combogia, gym membership (which is just another name for drugs like cocaine, meth etc.... but licensed and regula…

There are plenty of fat rich people.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#17
post #6

Actual title: "Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?" To further quote the article: “My personal opinion is that exercise is probably much more important” than mental stimulation for altering brains and gene expression and potentially even the aptitudes of one’s offspring, Dr. Fischer says. If the author of the article specifically phrased it as a question, let's not jump to making a definitive statement by ch…

So wouldn't the study just need to compare athelete's children with a rocket scientist's children?

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#18

Correlation implied as causation. Here is another correlation into causation article linking cardiovascular fitness to IQ[0] Another way to look at it can be from the per-capita relation of economic class to fitness[1]. It is entirely possible that, because people higher up the economic ladder are more likely to be fit, and because they are more likely to receive better prenatal care, generally have better nutrition,…

This article is about a study done on mice. Having not read the underlying study, and it not being my field, I can't speak to how well the article articulates the study's findings, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss it with the "correlation does not imply causation" argument.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#19

Most people don't exercise because no one is paying them to exercise. If a government wants healthy people, they should pay up $100 per hour to just exercise. I think this is the conspiracy of rich people to make poor people fat so that they get sick and rich people sell medicines, fast food, and garcinia combogia, gym membership (which is just another name for drugs like cocaine, meth etc.... but licensed and regula…

Most people don't exercise because they can't be bothered to. They think that they need energy before they can exercise, when it works exactly the other way around.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#20
post #6

Actual title: "Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?" To further quote the article: “My personal opinion is that exercise is probably much more important” than mental stimulation for altering brains and gene expression and potentially even the aptitudes of one’s offspring, Dr. Fischer says. If the author of the article specifically phrased it as a question, let's not jump to making a definitive statement by ch…

So wouldn't the study just need to compare athelete's children with a rocket scientist's children?

Most of the rocket scientists I know also exercise
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