That might help people understand, why – in developed countries where food supply is a solvable problem – poor people tend to be fat. ( CBC News, Oct 28, 2011):
Adults who grew up in poverty show changes in the “programming” of their DNA that may be linked to health problems such as obesity and autoimmune diseases, Canadian and British researchers have found.
Researchers had previously known that DNA is “programmed” in the womb to turn certain genes up or down, and more recently have shown that some programming can continue into childhood and adulthood.
But the study published online this week in the International Journal of Epidemiology is the first to show an actual link between a person’s early economic circumstances and the biochemistry of that person’s DNA, said Moshe Szyf, a professor of pharmacology at McGill University, who co-authored the study with colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the UCL Institute of Child Health in London.
Remember genes r’ us? Yeah.