You Are What You Eat

I've written on previous occasions about the revolution in our understanding of genetic inheritance and gene expression that has been sweeping science with recent discoveries in what's called epigenetics.

Epigenetics refers to chemical tags or markers found to be attached to different parts of the DNA molecule which control the expression of certain genes. It also refers to the general architecture of the cell which seems to add another level of control to gene expression.

One of the most interesting aspects of the discoveries that're being made in this field is that these chemical tags, molecules consisting of a half dozen or so atoms, can be altered by diet so that what one eats when one is in prime child-producing years can effect one's offspring.

Doctors have long known that substances like folic acid and others help produce healthy babies but why, exactly, was a bit of a mystery.

It's turning out that, as this story at Live Science explains, such substances affect what chemical tags attach to the DNA and where on the genetic material they attach.

Here's part of the article:

You are what you eat, the saying goes. And, according to two new genetic studies, you are what your mother, father, grandparents and great-grandparents ate, too. Diet, be it poor or healthy, can so alter the nature of one's DNA that those changes can be passed on to the progeny. While this much has been speculated for years, researchers in two independent studies have found ways in which this likely is happening.

The findings, which involve epigenetics, may help explain the increased genetic risk that children face compared to their parents for diseases such as obesity and diabetes.

The punch line is that your poor dietary habits may be dooming your progeny, despite how healthy they will try to eat. Recent studies have shown how nutrition dramatically alters the health and appearance of otherwise identical mice.

A group led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University demonstrated how mouse clones implanted as embryos in separate mothers will have radical differences in fur color, weight, and risk for chronic diseases depending on what that mother was fed during pregnancy.

That is, the nutrients or lack thereof changed the DNA environment in such a way that the identical DNA in these mouse clones expressed itself in very different ways.

The article notes that epigenetic changes wrought by diet occur in all cells of the body including ova and sperm so that these changes can be passed on to offspring by both parents. The article closes with this:

It is possible that eating more omega-3 fatty acids, choline, betaine, folic acid and vitamin B12, by mothers and fathers, possibly can alter chromatin state and mutations, as well as have beneficial effects…leading to birth of a 'super baby' with long life and [lower risk] of diabetes and metabolic syndrome.