Can Your Lifestyle Affect Your Unborn Child? (Part 2)

This is the second of two articles on the subject. If you haven't read the first part, read it here.

Last time, we talked about Lamarckism and epigenetics, which will now help us answer the original question.

First, let us refresh our memory really quickly.

Lamarckism: The idea that organisms can pass on characteristics that it has acquired throughout its life.

Epigenetics: Change in expression of the genetic material (DNA), rather than a change in the coding sequence. 

Now, we'll combine the two ideas to reveal something that was discovered relatively recently.

Epigenetic Lamarckism.

Sounds kind of cool, right? But what is it? As the name suggests, epigenetic Lamarckism is the idea that epigenetic patterns that govern the expression of genes can be passed on from parent to offspring. As the expression of genes is related to the events in an organism's life, the inheritance of epigenetic patterns can be termed Lamarckian. Sounds like a neat little hypothesis, but is there any evidence-based research that supports the suggested form of Lamarckian inheritance?

Well, while it has not yet been experimentally demonstrated in humans, there is some evidence from rodent models. For example, a 2010 study showed that male rats that were fed a high-fat diet were more likely to have obese female offspring. Another study, published in 2013 showed that mice that were trained to fear the scent of a chemical, produced offspring that were as likely to be scared by the same scent. A study on birds shows that the circadian rhythm (the body's internal time-keeping system) of a mother can be epigenetically inherited by their offspring. Creepy?

So, should you be concerned? While trans-generational epigenetic inheritance hasn't been observed in humans, based on the evidence from model studies, it would be reasonable to assume that our lifestyle choices (what we eat, when we sleep) may affect our unborn kids.

The good news is that epigenetic inheritance is what we might call soft inheritance, which means that it is unstable and might revert to normal expression once the stimulus inducing it has been eliminated. Unlike hard inheritance, where the gene undergoes a permanent change in the form of a mutation.

However, there is some evidence to suggest that the predisposition to certain diseases could be epigenetically inherited by offspring in humans. So, we'd rather be careful not to pass on our habits to our children by maintaining a relatively healthy lifestyle. Stay healthy. Keep your unborn kids healthy. And yes, give my post a like.

Until next time! Bubye!