The agenda of this 2017 Danish review was to establish a paternal role in intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of metabolic diseases:
“There are four windows of susceptibility which have major importance for epigenetic inheritance of acquired paternal epigenetic changes:
- paternal primordial germ cell (PGC) development,
- prospermatogonia stages,
- spermatogenesis, and
- during preimplantation.”
The review was a long read as the authors discussed animal studies. When it came to human studies near the paper’s end, though, the tone was of a “we know this is real, we just have to find it” variety. The authors acknowledged:
“To what extent the described DNA methylation changes influence the future health status of offspring by escaping remodeling in the preimplantation period as well as in future generations by escaping remodeling in PGC remodeling has yet to be determined.
These studies have not yet provided an in-depth understanding of the specific mechanisms behind epigenetic inheritance or exact effect size for the disease risk in offspring.
Pharmacological approaches have reached their limits..”
before presenting their belief that a hypothetical series of future CRISPR-Cas9 experiments will demonstrate the truth of their agenda.
The review focused on 0.0001% of the prenatal period for what matters with the human male – who he was at the time of a Saturday night drunken copulation – regarding intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of metabolic diseases.
The human female’s role – who she was at conception AND THEN what she does or doesn’t do during the remaining 99.9999% of the prenatal period to accommodate the fetus and prevent further adverse epigenetic effects from being intergenerationally and transgenerationally transmitted – wasn’t discussed.
Who benefits from this agenda’s narrow focus?
If the review authors sincerely want to:
“Raise societal awareness of behavior to prevent a further rise in the prevalence of metabolic diseases in future generations..”
then EARN IT! Design and implement HUMAN studies to test what’s already known from epigenetic inheritance animal studies per Experience-induced transgenerational programming of neuronal structure and functions. Don’t disguise beliefs with the label of science.
http://jme.endocrinology-journals.org/content/early/2017/12/04/JME-17-0189.full.pdf “DNA methylation in epigenetic inheritance of metabolic diseases through the male germ line”
Surface Your Real Self 