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Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma passed on to children's genes (epigenetics)
UK Guardian ^ | Helen Thomson

Posted on 08/24/2015 11:38:10 AM PDT by Sir Gawain

Genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, the clearest sign yet that one person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations.

The conclusion from a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to hide during the second world war.

They also analysed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders, and compared the results with Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during the war. “The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents,” said Yehuda.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: epigenetics
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To: Sir Gawain

The human condition any way you slice it fairly REEKS with failure. - I’m the child of an Allied soldier who marched through Germany & liberated the camps - after slogging through North Africa, Italy & half a world, faced with either killing or being killed every step of the way. Talk about battle fatigue (none of the sissy PTSD in his vocabulary). My final decision? I’m done. MARANATHA!!!


21 posted on 08/24/2015 11:56:37 AM PDT by Twinkie (John 3:16)
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To: miss marmelstein

This book might interest you:

http://store.infowars.com/Epigenetics_p_1336.html


22 posted on 08/24/2015 11:56:42 AM PDT by Sir Gawain
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To: Sir Gawain

Lysenko lives!


23 posted on 08/24/2015 11:58:01 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (To defeat the democRATs, we must first defeat the Republicans.)
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To: Sir Gawain

Reparations!


24 posted on 08/24/2015 12:02:16 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (This space for rent.)
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To: Sir Gawain

Just paving the way for reparation demands from the n-th generation down the line. Can Al Sharpton be far behind...? Or, rather, may that not be the true aim of this “study”?


25 posted on 08/24/2015 12:02:27 PM PDT by Moltke
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To: Sir Gawain
I don't believe this, not for one second.

There are too many self-selecting variations in populations to do such a study within a "similar population profile." The only incontrovertible way to study such a hypothesis is through genetic testing of individuals before and after long duration stress. Also, if such a mechanism exists in humans then it should also exist in other mammals. So subscribers of this hypothesis need to get busy on rabbits and lower primates before moving on to higher primates if they are ever going to make a case. It would also make sense to take genetic samples from individuals throughout war-torn regions of the world, go back in ten years and attempt to categorize the levels of stress experienced by study subjects in the intervening years, and then make genetic comparisons between their genetic profiles before and after the stressful periods.

Unless a specific gene can be shown to have changed in an adult during their lifetime and that specific change demonstrated to have been passed on to offspring, this entire theory is baloney.

26 posted on 08/24/2015 12:02:35 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan (My tagline is in the shop.)
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To: fwdude

The cruel white gene mutation is preventing you from sympathizing with the victims.


27 posted on 08/24/2015 12:06:45 PM PDT by sagar
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder; dp0622
You both beat me to it. I realize The Guardian is only reporting on this, but it is a Marxist rag after all.
28 posted on 08/24/2015 12:07:31 PM PDT by Moltke
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To: fwdude

You got that right.

It won’t be long before: “Past enslavement of blacks ruined the lives of every future generation of blacks in America”.


29 posted on 08/24/2015 12:11:53 PM PDT by WayneS (Yeah, it's probably sarcasm...)
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To: Seruzawa

Me neither. At least not that there is evidence in the genes.

Do I believe the children could be directly and adversely affected by their parents trauma?

Sure I do. But from the environment they live with.


30 posted on 08/24/2015 12:14:18 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (With Great Freedom comes Great Responsibility)
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To: Sir Gawain

Do not believe this for one minute!

Shabby science.

Correlation is not causation.


31 posted on 08/24/2015 12:17:38 PM PDT by miserare (Trump--the Andrew Dice Clay of the Republican Party.)
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To: ElkGroveDan
Also, if such a mechanism exists in humans then it should also exist in other mammals. So subscribers of this hypothesis need to get busy on rabbits and lower primates before moving on to higher primates if they are ever going to make a case.

From the article:

"Researchers have already shown that certain fears might be inherited through generations, at least in animals.

Scientists at Emory University in Atlanta trained male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossom by pairing the smell with a small electric shock. Eventually the mice shuddered at the smell even when it was delivered on its own.

Despite never having encountered the smell of cherry blossom, the offspring of these mice had the same fearful response to the smell - shuddering when they came in contact with it. So too did some of their own offspring.

On the other hand, offspring of mice that had been conditioned to fear another smell, or mice who’d had no such conditioning had no fear of cherry blossom.

The fearful mice produced sperm which had fewer epigenetic tags on the gene responsible for producing receptors that sense cherry blossom. The pups themselves had an increased number of cherry blossom smell receptors in their brain, although how this led to them associating the smell with fear is still a mystery."

32 posted on 08/24/2015 12:20:50 PM PDT by WayneS (Yeah, it's probably sarcasm...)
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To: Ancesthntr

You know; this brings up a very good point that I once read about. The point was that children usually learn what they live.


33 posted on 08/24/2015 12:23:21 PM PDT by Jean2 (ox)
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To: jmacusa

I don’t know.


34 posted on 08/24/2015 12:25:28 PM PDT by loungitude (The truth hurts.)
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To: WayneS

Keep in mind tho that even if genes can’t actually be changed through things like stress (it seems that they can), the genes of the children and descendents of slaves were certainly modified through things like selective and forced breeding, rape by owners/overseers, etc.

Note, that doesn’t equate to some sort of entitlement based on genetics, since just about EVERY group that came here to the US did so in whole or part as a result of some sort of oppressive and coercive means. For example, are the children/descendents of African slaves entitled to some sort of “genetic stress” compensation different than say Irish Americans. Who in large part came here as a result of a policy of deliberate starvation and then kept, if not in a state of indentured servitude, then certainly forcable underclass existance?


35 posted on 08/24/2015 12:26:32 PM PDT by tanknetter
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To: TexasGator

No, I didn’t read the full story. But gene changes as a result of certain behaviors strikes me as being absurd. Of course, mutations can occur, but as a rule unless something affects survival directly, it will be neither more nor less common in the genes of the next generation than without the event(s) occurring.


36 posted on 08/24/2015 12:33:21 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

I’m fine with reparations if part of the deal is that anyone who takes some reparations $$ also is “repatriated” back to their “homeland”, wherever they came from before being forcefully immigrated here 150 years ago, and giving up all rights to immigrate back here ever again. I figure anyone who would pursue this is a good candidate to have exported from our country and it would be worth a $$ settlement in saved welfare $$, crime, inner city deterioration, etc. Anyone who is a loyal U.S. citizen and thankful to be here would not go that route.


37 posted on 08/24/2015 12:34:14 PM PDT by boxlunch (CRUZ 2016! TAKE AMERICA BACK!!!)
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To: TexasGator; ElkGroveDan

Also, take a look at #26. I didn’t write it, but I concur


38 posted on 08/24/2015 12:36:01 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Ancesthntr

“No, I didn’t read the full story.”

Stopped reading your post right there.


39 posted on 08/24/2015 12:37:42 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: Ancesthntr

Please read.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/epi_learns/


40 posted on 08/24/2015 12:41:34 PM PDT by TexasGator
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