So most of the time when we think of genetic changes, we think about DNA mutations. ZEBEDE: Well, we got to go back to the basics - genetics minus the epi- part. So we are talking about epigenetics today. ZEBEDE: And whether those changes might last generations. SOFIA: So today on the show, we take a look at the field of epigenetics - how our behaviors and environment can change the way our bodies use DNA. Bianca is one of a handful of scientists exploring the possibility of this. ZEBEDE: It's called epigenetic inheritance of trauma. JONES MARLIN: I look at how trauma or stressors can be passed down through generations, and not just how they're passed down through lore or word or storytelling but how they're passed down by being remembered in the cells in our body. Bianca and others are trying to figure out how and why. But what's really surprising is that the grandchildren of people alive during the Hunger Winter were more likely to have poor health, too - meaning those a generation removed from the trauma. ZEBEDE: And they found that the children of people who were pregnant during the famine were more likely to have obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. Researchers wanted to try and study the effects of hunger on development. SOFIA: Now, this was a really specific and well-documented moment in time, which made it ripe for investigation. Thousands of people died, and thousands more experienced intense starvation. And that time in the Netherlands is now known as the Dutch Hunger Winter. She's a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. It was an extreme famine to the point where you.ĪRIELA ZEBEDE, BYLINE: That's Bianca Jones Marlin. People there were really, really starving. That year, there was an unusually early and brutally cold winter.īIANCA JONES MARLIN: The Netherlands were completely cut off of food. The Germans retaliated by blocking food supply to the Netherlands. World War II was almost over, and the Allied forces were winning.
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