Epigenetics: Part one of a three-part series examining the effects of nutrition over a lifetime.
Prenatal Nutrition
One aspect of epigenetics is the study of nutrition and nutritional deficiency at the enzyme, chromosomal, and gene level, and how they affect the duplication and transmission of DNA.
In the 1930s, a Cleveland dentist, Dr. Weston A. Price traveled to remote parts of the world to study the dental health of peoples unaffected by Western civilization. His purpose was to search for the raw materials responsible for good dental health. His investigations revealed that dental cavities and deformed jaw lines that created crowded and crooked teeth are the result of nutritional deficiencies, not inherited genetic defects. The cultures that Price studied included isolated African tribes, as well as 10 other isolated tribes around the world. Wherever he went, Dr. Price found that beautiful straight teeth free from decay, strong physiques, and healthy people resistant to disease, that were typical of native tribes on their traditional diets, rich in essential nutrients. Once the white colonialists moved into the adjacent area, those parents eating the modern diet of processed foods, sugar, white flour, pasteurized milk, low-fat foods, and vegetable oils, no longer birthed healthy babies. These remote cultures also understood the importance of preconception nutrition for both parents. Many cultures required a period of special food before conception, in which nutrient dense meats were given to young men and women. These special diets were also given to pregnant and lactating women. In connection with these investigations among primitive races it is interesting to note that the data are in complete harmony with the data that clinical pathologists, have obtained in their study of the physical and structural characteristics of individuals who make up the deficiency groups. The association of abnormalities of the palate with mental deficiency has long been recognized. Many observations have been recorded which show convincingly that, although deformed palates occur in the normal population, they are far more frequent in the mentally deficient. Deformed palates are present in 19 per cent of the ordinary population, 33 per cent of the insane, 55 per cent of criminals, but in no less than 61 per cent of very low IQ people. (Price, Weston. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, A comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets. Pg.329)
An unhealthy maternal diet and psychosocial distress – significantly affect children’s future neurodevelopment. These prenatal experiences exert their influence in the context of one another.
Studies on the potential effects of maternal prenatal distress and prenatal inadequate nutrition in relation to children’s neurocognitive development are numerous and distinct from each other. Results indicate that both exposures impact memory, attention, and brain systems, essential to these cognitive functions.
During gestation, fetal neurons proliferate, differentiate, migrate, and aggregate, a process that is genetically determined and epigenetically directed.
Some of the effects of maternal stress include lower scores on the Mental Development Index of the Bayley Scales at 24 months, poor attention at 12 months on a behavior rating scale and ADHD symptoms at 6.5 and 8–9 years old. These neurocognitive outcomes overlap with those associated with inadequate maternal nutrient intake, but they are rarely considered together. " Prenatal exposure to maternal distress and poor nutrient status both are associated with deficits in neurocognitive development, particularly in relation to memory and learning, and causes variation in the structural and functional aspects of the hippocampus." (Research Review: Maternal prenatal distress and poor nutrition – mutually influencing risk factors affecting infant neurocognitive development. Catherine Monk,1 Michael K. Georgieff)
Suboptimal intrauterine conditions, including poor nutrition, during critical periods of growth may lead to lifelong changes in the body’s organs and tissues, thus providing a physiological basis for adult-onset obesity, diabetes or heart disease. Remarkably, recent evidence suggests that the long-term consequences of adverse conditions during early development may not be limited to one generation but may lead to poor health in the generations to follow. For example, the diet of a pregnant mother may affect the development and disease risk of her children and even her grandchildren. There is limited evidence for this in humans since studies of multiple generations are difficult to maintain. However, recent animal models have been generated to investigate this phenomenon. Some diseases that were once thought to arise near the time of their manifestation in adulthood are now acknowledged to originate in utero or postnatal.
For example, longitudinal studies in England have shown that low birth weight babies have increased cardiovascular and metabolic disease. For instance, one of the first studies in humans to suggest a intergenerational programming effect was a study on men in the UK, which found that death rates from stroke were highest among men, whose birth weights were low and whose mothers had flat bony pelvises. A flat bony pelvis is a malformation that is thought to be associated with malnutrition in utero or during infancy. This suggests that malnourishment during development of the mother affects the health of her children.
Studies of historical famine records collected over three generations in Sweden have revealed that a paternal grandfather’s food supply during his slow growth period, from age 9 - 12 years, was linked to mortality risk in his grandsons. Additionally, if a paternal grandfather had access to an excess of food during his slow growth period, his grandchildren had a 400% increased risk of death due to diabetes. These studies suggest that the exposure to famine or access to excess food might affect the development or epigenetic status of his Y-chromosome containing sperm, which in turn affected his son’s Y-chromosome containing sperm. A model of paternal transmission, such as this one, implies that genetic or epigenetic factors are responsible for these effects since there are no confounding physiological factors of a uterus’s environment. "These defects in epigenetic regulation, changes in genome-wide DNA methylation patterns, are more likely to occur than genetic mutations." (The next generation of disease risk: Are the effects of prenatal nutrition transmitted across generations? (Evidence from animal and human studies. T.J. Rosenbloom , E.D. Watson Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Biostatistics.)
Where do we go from here? First, we need to supply all pregnant women with fresh nutritious fruits, vegetables and meats in such quantities to erase any food insecurities they might have. We also need to supply these women with all 90 essential nutrients during pregnancy and while nursing if that’s an option. After all, doesn’t it make financial good sense to prevent all the future medical costs of low birth weight babies plus the future costs of caring for those mentally challenged children who end up incarcerated or being cared for by the state.
Norway’s healthcare system focuses on providing good nutrition to mothers and children up to age 5. They have significantly lowered the costs due to metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease later in life by focusing on early childhood and pre-natal nutrition. All these birth defects are blamed on the faulty gene pool of the parents and the infant by modern medical science. Our medical establishment refuses to believe that these defects are epigenetic and caused by the lack of nutrition and can be prevented with good nutrition.
After all MD’s and the drug companies that sponsor the medical schools, they go to, don’t make any money on healthy people. All Americans are now slaves of the men in the long white coats, that call themselves health care providers. They never cure anybody of anything. They only manage symptoms and create more symptoms from the side effects of the expensive patent medicines they prescribe. In my opinion, we can lower the cost of healthcare by focusing on good pre-natal and post-natal nutrition for the first 5 years in life. We will also decrease the numbers of children born with mental deficiencies who end up incarcerated or being cared for by the state for the rest of their lives.
But it will be a struggle, the Medical Monopoly has controlled the healthcare conversation for over 100 years since the Flexner Report of 1912 was first used to create the system, we are all slaves to. If it was widely known that birth defects are epigenetic not genetic, they would lose hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Good prenatal nutrition, a social determinant of health, will greatly improve the mental and physical health of all countries.
Share this information with all the people you care about. You can make a difference.
The Truth is Out There,
Shawn
RESOURCES:
Price, Weston. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, A comparison of Primitive
and Modern Diets.
Research Review: Maternal prenatal distress and poor nutrition – mutually
influencing risk
factors affecting infant neurocognitive development Catherine Monk,1 Michael K.
Georgieff,2,3 and Erin A. Osterholm
The next generation of disease risk: Are the effects of prenatal nutrition
transmitted across generations? Evidence from animal and human studies. T.J.
Rosenboom, E.D. Watson Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Biostatistics.
Wallach, Joel. Epigenetics: The Death of the Genetic Theory of Disease
Transmission.