Dietary restriction increases lifespan in a broad variety of organisms and improves health in humans. However, long-term transgenerational consequences of dietary interventions are poorly understood. Here we investigated the effect of dietary restriction by temporary fasting (TF) on mortality risk, age-specific reproduction and fitness across three generations of descendants in C. elegans. We show that while TF robustly reduces mortality risk and improves late-life reproduction in the parental generation (P0), it has a wide range of both positive and deleterious effects on future generations (F1-F3). Remarkably, great-grandparental exposure to TF in early-life reduces fitness and increases mortality risk of F3 descendants to such an extent that TF no longer promotes a lifespan extension. These findings reveal that transgenerational trade-offs accompany the instant benefits of dietary restriction underscoring the need to consider fitness of future generations in pursuit of healthy ageing. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Download data

• Downloaded 317 times
• Download rankings, all-time:
  • Site-wide: 76,624
  • In evolutionary biology: 4,287
• Year to date:
  • Site-wide: 44,895
• Since beginning of last month:
  • Site-wide: 44,895

Altmetric data

Downloads over time

Distribution of downloads per paper, site-wide