What if your grandparents lifestyle affected how long you live or what disease you contract? A friend of mine made a mid-life decision to change careers and enter the field of social work. As part of her college homework she is required to watch the BBC educational documentary – “The Ghost in Your Genes.” I decided I wanted to watch it as well. This 50 minute video has left me with much food for thought.

The story is about epigenetics which has been around for a while yet may be a new concept to many. Epigenetics refers to changes in a gene caused by influences (such as the environment) outside of normal changes or mutations of the DNA. What is rather astounding is that these changes may last for multiple generations of offspring.

The video explores the story of epigenetics, how it was discovered and unraveled as well as some of the potential ramifications. Environmental considerations that occurred during the life of your grandmother could affect your lifespan or the diseases that you or your offspring develop.

How did we learn this? A researcher working with children with rare diseases made a confusing yet profound discovery. He determined that for a certain disease there was a gene in a certain location in the child’s DNA that was turned off. That in itself is no surprise. What was unexpected is that he found the same gene was turned off for a different disease with significantly different symptoms and results in the children who had the second disease. He concluded that there must be some information that travels with the DNA that tells the turned off portion of the gene how to act. What they concluded is that it depends upon whether the DNA with the gene turned off came from the father or the mother. The sex of the parent determined which disease would show up.

This researcher ultimately became teamed up with a researcher who also noticed a similar phenomena. The second researcher has access to detailed records of all the people who lived and had lived in a small isolated village on the edge of the Arctic Circle As luck would have it, not only did the records contain details of the reasons for peoples deaths for many generations, it also contained detailed records of the crops harvested each year. This was significant because due to the northern location and the difficulty in access to the village there were many period of feast and famine through the ages.

In studying the records along with others conducting a lot of related research, they found that if your grandmother experienced famine at a young age that it was likely you would die younger and would contract diabetes. The studies showed that the first twenty years of your ancestor’s life were the most important. For the female the environmental conditions in the last trimester in the womb was the key influence. For the male, the key was the environmental conditions that were occurring when he reached puberty. Although starvation was one of the key indicators in the study of the northern village, additional research show it may be whether your ancestor, smoked, drank, or was exposed to other environmental or man made toxins at the critical time in their life.

A New York based group decided to study women who were pregnant during the events of 9-11 and were closely connected to the event in some way. The researchers found 200 women, many of who had escaped from the twin towers or had evacuated from buildings nearby and had to flee. They found that about half of the group had experienced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research had determined that when a pregnant rat was injected with a stress hormone; an abnormal stress response was also found in offspring for several generations later. In the case of the women that had experienced PTSD they showed signs of abnormal stress response and significantly their children showed signs of abnormal stress response. It was found that the stress response in their children increased as the incident of PTSD occurred farther along in the pregnancy with the most profound effects in the third trimester. It should only take another 15 years or so before scientists are able to test the offspring of those children to see if their offspring’s stress response is abnormal.

The implications of this are profound. Back in the days of Regan as President, the scientists and governments were touting the Genome project as the be all and end all of disease and problems in human health. In fact, all it did was build a foundation for research and deepen the mystery of what really happens in our genetic makeup. Why is it we are who we are and what affects does our environment have on future generations? Knowing some of the things we have done, some of the things we allow, and some of things we do to our air, water, soil, work environments and our food can only leave one with concern for future generations and ourselves. There are the implications for disease or deformity or early death for our offspring. There are other implications as well. Maybe in the future you will be denied life insurance because your grandmother was born during a famine or in a poor part of the country during the depression. Who knows what could come of this?

Luckily the video “The Ghost in Your Genes” was also posted in 5 parts on YouTube so it is easy to find it. I recommend watching it.

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