Before Fatherhood Begins: How a Man’s Life Quietly Shapes the Next Generation
For much of modern science, inheritance followed a simple story. A father contributed DNA, a mother carried the pregnancy, and everything else was shaped after birth by environment and upbringing. Responsibility for early biological influence leaned heavily toward maternal health, while paternal contribution was framed as largely fixed and passive.
Epigenetics has quietly dismantled that story.
Research over the past two decades now shows that sperm does not arrive at conception as a neutral container of DNA. It carries chemical instructions shaped by a man’s body, habits, and environment in the months before conception. These instructions do not change genes themselves, but they influence how genes behave—when they turn on, when they stay quiet, and how strongly they act during early de...




















