Our genes have an impact across generations. How these genes change their expression across generations is called a branch of science called epigenetics. After decades of study, scientists have now come to the conclusion that what your grandparents ate is affecting you and your children. Not only this, what you are eating will affect your grandchildren.
Quite literally, dietary preferences and manifestations tend to run in the family. Nutritional aspects of epigenetics are called nutritional epigenetics. According to Nathaniel Johnson, assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of North Dakota, and other researchers, the dietary choices a person makes today affect the genetics of their future children.
Epigenetics has its roots in the people of the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. The Dutch were forced to live on a ration of 400 to 800 kilocalories, compared to a normal diet of about 2,000 kilocalories. About 20,000 people died and about 45 lakh people became victims of malnutrition.
The effects of their low diet are visible in the generations of people who lived in the Nazi concentration camps. (Symbolic photo: Canva)
The study found that changes in diet in the Netherlands led to changes in a gene called IGF2, which is related to growth and development. This stunted muscle growth in both the children and grandchildren of Dutch women who survived the dietary challenges posed by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
According to the results of the ‘Dutch Hunger Winter’, it is precisely because of this that post-World War II generations in the Netherlands had an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and low birth weight. The human body, within the limits of its survival instincts, attempts to withstand the effects of external challenges. The traits acquired during these periods of challenge are sometimes inherited by future generations.
A recent study conducted on sheep showed that parental diet supplemented with the amino acid methionine, given from birth to weaning, affected the growth and reproductive qualities of the next three generations.
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FIRST PUBLISHED: April 29, 2024, 12:18 IST
