Not only is your great-grandmother’s environment affecting your health,
Skinner concluded, but the chemicals she was exposed to may have left a
fingerprint that scientists can actually trace.
The findings point to potentially new medical diagnostics. In the
future, you may even go to your doctor’s office to have your methylation
patterns screened. Exposure of lab rats to the chemical DDT can lead to
obesity in subsequent generations—a link Skinner’s team reported in
October. Hypothetically, a doctor might someday look at your methylation
patterns early in life to determine your risk for obesity later. What’s
more, toxicologists may need to reconsider how they study chemical
exposures, especially those occurring during pregnancy. The work raises
implications for monitoring the environment, for determining the safety
of certain chemicals, perhaps even for establishing liability in legal
cases involving health risks of chemical exposure.
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