Obese mums may pass health risks on to grandchildren

Thanks to member Loren Taylor for finding this great article:

Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes - Discover, Jun 11, 2013

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes#.Ub4p4PnVBTn

"Epigenetics and inheritance: epidemiologic study in humans showed that generation-skipping changes can occur due to diet; looked at small farming community in Sweden over last 200 yr; confirmed Barker hypothesis about in utero effects, but also found that periods of either starvation or overeating during grandparents’ adolescence af­fected mortality rate of their grandchildren in sex-specific manner; among paternal grandmothers who had less food, female grandchildren had better survival rate, whereas grandfathers with less food had male grandchildren with better survival rate; conclusion  —  researchers postulate that adolescent diet during slow growth period changed gametes (sperm and eggs) of grandparents, which eventually affected their grandchildren; mouse study  —  expression of coat color (from yellow to almost brown) depends on degree of DNA methylation; can directly look at methylation and predict coat colors; study showed that DNA of maternal mice fed bisphenol-A became demeth­ylated, which resulted in shift in coat color of progeny to one end of color spectrum; if mother fed methyl donor, coat color of progeny shifted to other end of spectrum; provides clear evidence of diet affecting epigenetic control." http://www.audio-digest.org/pages/htmlos/summary.html?sub1=OB5803

If I'm not mistaken, I think "generation skipping" was addressed in:

The Ghost in Your Genes - BBC Horizon (50 mins)

http://acesconnection.com/video/the-ghost-in-your-genes-bbc-horizon