"You are what you eat" is a truism I managed to ignore for years, along with "Everything is the mother's fault." Then I became a mother, then a grandma, and I've been searching ever since for evidence to the contrary. Thank you, Judith Finlayson. David Barker is the doctor whose epidemiological work provides most of the substance of "You Are What Your Grandparents Ate," but Finlayson culls a multitude of studies and offers a crash-course (or review) of Darwin's legacy and Mendel's peas, organizing a large body of textbook material into a manageable whole.
I'd like to report that she also got me to understand the field of epigenetics, which has fascinated and tormented me ever since I found E.E. Giorgi's science fiction novels "Gene Card" and "Chimeras" via Kindle Daily Deals. Giorgi has a PhD in genetics and an enviable grasp of epigenetics, and her novels bring that to life in ways no textbook ever could. But, but, this book is one of the best I've seen, as far as putting things in layman's terms.
Our risk of cancer, chronic disease, obesity, and all that is not just coded in our DNA. What Grandma ate while Mom was in the womb can change the way our genes express themselves. Did Grandpa smoke at an early age? That might be why his grandchildren were born small and underweight. "Nutritional epigenetics" is a thing. Indeed, it's a science. The food we eat (or fail to eat) strongly influences the way our genes behave. "Nutri-epigenomics" is how food affects gene expression.
Again, I want to say I came away from this book *understanding* this stuff. On page eleven, I can read that our DNA does not change, but how our genes express themselves lead to changes in utero that have the potential to be passed on to future generations.
A really startling (you might say "scary") part of the book is about our microbiome. The gut has been called our "second brain." The bacteria in your gut has been in constant communication with your brain pretty much since conception. Things like a C-section can significantly affect our inner microbiome, which is like an entire separate command center or brain. Once again, I'd like to be able to read books, internalize the information and paraphrase accurately, but I'm not sure even this book, coherent and readable as it is, can help me do that.
This is a book I need to re-read and revisit before I feel I can safely talk about it. And, sorry to say, I do talk about things like this at social gatherings. While everyone else is talking football or the latest movie, I'm thinking those hot dogs are full of nitrates that might lead to leukemia in your children or grandchildren, but the last thing pregnant women want to hear is more un-sought advice. But, here goes: if you are planning to conceive and bear children, this is a book you definitely ought to read.
I'm sorry I didn't eat more spinach and broccoli, kids, and less of the processed food most Americans consume daily. I hope the Amana white potato bread with chunky Jif and non-organic cow's milk did you no harm.
But our three-year old grandson has something going on with his eyes, and I keep thinking it's all my fault; everything is the mother's fault; something I ate, or failed to eat, while his mother was developing in the womb, has led to this.
But his father's father might have smoked at an early age. War and hunger, stress and trauma, could have flipped that epigenetic switch in someone else's DNA, not just mine.
Hey. I can't come away quoting the science like I get it, so I take what I can from a book and run with it.
Epigenetics. The origins of chronic disease. Blame the mother if you will, blame her diet, blame her circumstances (famine, war: not Mom's fault!), but above all, take what we have learned and put it to good use.
Off to choke down some broccoli and salmon, even though it's too late for my grandhildren. :)
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