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DNA May Carry a Memory of Your Living Conditions From Childhood
An anonymous reader writes "Canadian and British scientists have found that how rich your family was when you were a kid — as judged by wealth, housing conditions and occupation of parents — has a huge impact on your current DNA. 'This is the first time we've been able to make the link between the economics of early life and the biochemistry of DNA,' says Moshe Szyf, professor of pharmacology at McGill University. The study did not show whether the DNA changes identified are passed on to offspring, but if so, repeat cycles of poverty could be putting poor children at a serious disadvantage for heart disease, diabetes and lung disorders."
The changes in DNA are due to methylation of the DNA, not changes in sequence. This can lead to more or less of a given gene being expressed, but won't lead to any actual changes in the genes.
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"but if so, repeat cycles of poverty could be putting poor children at a serious disadvantage for heart disease, diabetes and lung disorders."
What is this based on? Perhaps extra robustness is built in for exactly the reason that you may run more risk? So having poor parents may actually give you an advantage...
Everyone can't be rich, but with a little work, everyone could not be poor.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
> There are always going to be 'haves' and 'have nots' in this world...that's the way of nature.
I think you're confusing nature with modern society.
It seems like we've been finding more and more that there are more influences on an organism's genome than just simple heredity and natural selection over a period of several generations. I remember a recent study that suggested that acquired traits might actually be possible to pass on to offspring... if this is the case, we're going to have to revise our models pretty seriously.
If anything, it will only make evolution a lot more impressive. I don't think we'll be seeing X-men level mutations ever, but these kinds of effects could really accelerate change in a species much more than we've ever expected (assuming that these changes happen in reproductive cells as well).
Yes, but changes in fundamental sequence aren't the only way genes 'change'. Changes in expression constitute almost all of the biological changes that affect to an organism during its lifetime, as opposed to merely affecting its offspring; it's only because of expression changes that you ever go from a fetus to an adult (or from a fetus to a slightly larger fetus, for that matter).
I mean, presumably you understand this, unless you're able to talk about methylation solely from reading the article, but I don't want anyone to get the impression that 'only' changing the way DNA is expressed is a small feat.
Expression is *everything*. Almost nothing can be accomplished in any eukaryotic organism without deliberate changes in expression like this; basal transcription (the rate at which your genes are used entirely because the right parts randomly came together with nothing else - like methylation - helping or preventing them) accomplishes almost nothing.
The human genome is a lot like a computer in that way: almost nothing happens without something specifically telling it to work, and these guys just discovered a whole damn code library.
I don't think so....think of the individual, each person is blessed with gifts...mental, physical strength, height, eyesight.
Not everyone starts on the same 'playing ground' even at the most basic of things in life.
I mean, hell...no matter how hard I tried, even if from birth, there is no way I'd have made it as an athlete in the NBA, or ever got close to that caliber.
That that's not even taking into consideration people born crippled or retarded.....nature really started them with a disadvantage that has nothing to do with modern society. Hell, before modern society in primitive cultures, people with deformities likely were left out to die quickly.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Poor has a well defined floor, though. If you have food, shelter, and clothing security, there's no need to consider you poor.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Sounds a lot like a Nova program I saw some time ago. It titled 'Ghost in your genes'. It talked about how epigenetics control how your genes are expressed and they had noticed some inherited traits based on whether the ancestors were poor, starving, folk or not.
With appropriate measures, the minimum standard of living can be made good enough to not result in a permanent health effect.
The haves will always write off disparity of wealth as "oh well, just one of those things" right up until the poor start camping in their front yard.
Rich is relative. By the standards of say roman Gaul everybody in the USA is RICH.
I like living in a country were one or 'poor' peoples problems is obesity.
I don't like living in a country where privileged people (if you are reading this, that almost surely includes you) think that obesity is the big problem for the truly impoverished and not the lack of access to reasonable health care, transportation, and education (among many other things) that are all REQUIRED for meaningful participation in this society. When you set the bar at Roman Gaul it's easy to pat yourself on the back for the catastrophic results of our economic system, but for anyone who thinks citizens should be entitled to livable conditions and meaningful social/economic/political participation, what we have is an abject failure.
I grew up poor. I got meat on my table for the cost of a bullet and dodging the game warden in the off season. I got vegetables on my table because we gleaned the commercial fields to gather what was left over from the combine harvesters before it spoiled. We had bread because my mother was willing to buy hogs feed, mill it herself and bake it. I grew up in a house with a dirt floor and no insulation in rural Montana. I grew up getting a grand total of 2 cheap toys a year, 1 for my birthday and 1 for Christmas. I know what its like to have to choose between seeing a doctor and paying rent. I still have clothes I wore 20 years ago because I don't throw anything away. I've had to work my fingers to the bone to grind my way out of abject and total poverty. And I am a lucky one, born gifted with intellect that puts me in the 99.99 percentile.
Fuck you. Fuck you ignorant condescension and feeble immorality. And by the way, failure to provide health care often leads to death, violating Maslows physiological need to breath, and otherwise sets on the second tier of safety. Education ties in to employment and indirectly the ability to provide food, again setting in the two most basic tiers. You are just wrong.
Fail.
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live in absolute poverty today. Relative poverty refers to lacking a usual or socially acceptable level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
300x is hyperbole, but 18x is not: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/ The comment you replied to is basically right. Eating healthy food is a privilege in this country, and it's a privilege that millions of people don't have.
Kids grow up fast.
But the whole "First Five" campaign is a joke. A person's future or personality is in no way set in stone by too much tv, too few "I love you"s, a lack of socialization, etc. (If you don't believe me, go look at dogs, chimps, horses, any other domestic animal, and yes, people.)
The intense focus on early childhood development is all about giving parents the illusion of control in an increasingly disconnected society. It used to take a village to raise a child, now it takes a government program to tell parents exactly what to do. Either way, that illusion of control prevents parents from running around in a constant state of panic. It's more like 70% of the time instead of constant. Not quite as good as letting your kids loose on the neighborhood, but it'll do.