Obesity is a global epidemic which prevalence and severity is foreseen to further increase. It poses several detrimental effects on health and is a major risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases. Parental obesity predisposes the child to become obese. Gut microbiota is mechanistically linked with obesity, and it is transmitted from a parent to offspring. Therefore, it is plausible that obesity could in part be transmitted intergenerationally via gut microbiota. The micrOBES will investigate whether such mechanism operates in humans by applying a 3-generational cohort including 2027 parent-offspring dyads and 753 triads with data on weight status and a faecal sample. This pioneering data could lead to fundamental conceptual change in scientific thinking on the intergenerational transmission of a phenotype. Apart from providing novel scientific knowledge, the micrOBES offers routes to break the cycle of familial transmission of obesity by targeting the gut microbiota.

2024

2028