Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Inheritance MAY include fears and reactive habits built into our DNA and much more on new medicine and science

Have you found or discovered any traits, reactive habits or fears which seem to be familial, seem to be common to your family and ancestors?A BBC report states, "Behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory, animal studies suggest.Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations.
A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their 'grandchildren'."
The rest of the findings discussed above and below are at
Here is the original study abstract and citation:
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.3594.html
"Family affairThe findings provide evidence of "transgenerational epigenetic inheritance" - that the environment can affect an individual's genetics, which can in turn be passed on.
One of the researchers Dr Brian Dias told the BBC: "This might be one mechanism that descendants show imprints of their ancestor.
"There is absolutely no doubt that what happens to the sperm and egg will affect subsequent generations."
Prof Marcus Pembrey, from University College London, said the findings were "highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders" and provided "compelling evidence" that a form of memory could be passed between generations.
He commented: "It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously.
"I suspect we will not understand the rise in neuropsychiatric disorders or obesity, diabetes and metabolic disruptions generally without taking a multigenerational approach."
If the above study has some validity and truth for us humans, what are the appropriate cautions and precautions? Are there preventive practices in the light of particular sensitivities? These are important questions to reflect upon - both in terms of our own life and also, especially in this time of the year when families gather, in terms of our family with whom we share genetic inheritances.

What are skillful responses and PRE-cautions when we will be with our family and the family of friends, partners and so forth?

Below are some comments I received on this blog post:

"This is really cool; it basically implies that epigenetic tags put on the DNA which are usually cleared between generations were not in this case, or perhaps were cleared less cleanly.  This is due to gene methylation aka the application of epigenetic tags which are due to environmental factors in an individual. It's a fascinating and new area of genetics that is just now beginning to be understood. Another instance of this was a study that if I remember correctly found that individuals whose grandparents had periods of famine in their lives were less likely to become obese and to develop diabetes."

Another comment was : "An interesting study but I am reluctant to generalize to humans without experimental evidence from other mammals including humans."

And now a review of genetic research and another study on this area:

Book Review: 'The Cure in the Code,' by Peter W. Huber


"We are at a turning point in medicine. Knowledge of the individual's genetic makeup will soon allow molecular medicine to reach deep inside each of us to cure most of the maladies that afflict us—and perhaps even slow the rate at which we age. First we will learn to understand each person's genome; then we will learn to craft treatments tailored to his or her genetic constitution.
But it may not be so easy—and not for purely scientific reasons. Consider 23andMe, a commercial enterprise launched in 2006 that was merely looking to inform Americans about their potential genetic vulnerability to certain diseases. Regulators from the Food and Drug Administration have dropped the hammer on the company, citing baseless fears that its customers will do something dangerously stupid in reaction to the information that the tests provide. The FDA's regulatory labyrinth is not only slow to digest the science behind the genetic testing involved in 23andMe. It also can't quite figure out what to do with the proliferation of molecular biomarkers that can predict treatment efficacy more quickly than the conventional clinical trials the agency relies upon.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg, Peter Huber argues in "The Cure in the Code," his urgent, compelling account of how 21st-century medicine is being hampered by a regulatory regime built for the science of the 20th century..."
for the rest of the article see:



Parents have gastric bypass; children’s DNA may receive the benefits

It's epigenetics: Kids' gene expression may occur a generation after surgery.

"Gastric bypass surgeries would, at first glance, seem to tackle the problems of obesity through simple physics: with a smaller stomach, there's only so much food a person can ingest. Actual results are anything but simple, however. Long before any significant weight loss occurs, patients who have the surgery show a remarkable reversal in many aspects of type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors. This suggests the body responds physiologically to the altered food intake itself rather than its impact on obesity.
New research shows that the effects may go beyond the patients themselves. A study has beentracking women who have had kids both before and after these surgeries, and it reveals that the children also see changes in how their bodies handle fats and sugars (as well as in markers of cardiovascular health). The researchers have found that the offspring may be benefiting from epigenetic inheritance, in which the parent's surgery influences how the DNA they inherit is interpreted by their cells...."
(c) 2013 Elihu Genmyo Smith
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