Your Living Conditions as a Child May Be Detectable In Your DNA for Life
Methylation Christoph Bock (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) via Wikimedia Noted geneticist Snoop Dogg once said--and I'm paraphrasing here--that no matter where one goes in life, one's surroundings during one's formative years stay with one for life. No matter where you go, you can't change where you're from (I think Prof. Dogg was actually calling back to an old Comrads lyric from the song Homeboyz--I'm sure you all will correct me in the comments). Findings published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology suggest that he may have been correct--socio-economic status and living standards early in life may actually cause changes to your DNA that you carry with you for life, regardless of how your living conditions change along the way. In some ways, we already knew that. Some adult diseases--type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, etc.--have been linked to socio-economic disadvantages in early life. But we don't really know...