How Your Experiences Change Your Sperm and Eggs - Newsweek
One reason that is not so farfetched: transgenerational effects are showing up not only in lab rats but also in people, as if the ghosts of our ancestors haunt our very genes. In 2006 scientists announced the findings of a study in a town in Sweden called Överkalix (chosen because it keeps excellent birth and death records). If a father began smoking before the age of 11, found Marcus Pembrey of the Institute of Child Health in London, his sons had a greater body-mass index, on average, than did sons of men who took up smoking as adults. In this same population, if a man suffered food shortages as an 8- to 12-year-old child, his sons’ sons were more likely to die young; if a woman suffered food shortages as a child, her son’s daughters were. Another study in Överkalix found that if a man overate in childhood, his sons’ children were four times more likely to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease, found scientists at Sweden’s Umeå University.
