The environment of babies in their early years would play a role in their health in adulthood. Researchers from Newnorthwestern University in the United States have found that the living conditions of babies have an influence on the inflammation of their bodies later in life.
Inflammation is implicated in the risk of many diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and dementia. The scientists therefore continued their study, which appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, to determine the underlying mechanisms.
DNA is not fixed
The research team attempted to answer the question: “How does the body remember childhood experiences and retain them to form inflammation in adulthood?” “. Analysis of data from a health cohort in the Philippines showed that nutritional, microbial and psychosocial exposure could predict DNA methylations, i.e. chemical changes, in 9 genes implicated in the regulation of inflammation. In practice, the nutritional quality and duration of breastfeeding, the richness of exposure to microbial agents which forge the child’s immune defences, and exposure to adversity (economic status and parental absences) influence these DNA methylations.
These results show that it is necessary to go beyond the debate of the innate and the acquired, and the received idea according to which the DNA is fixed at conception. Genes are not static and evolve according to the environment, this is called epigenetics. And the consequences can be felt much later.
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