The Gaza Strip is currently going through an overwhelming famine, which was described as the “worst” in the world, but the worst of that is that it does not stop, but rather worsens in the most worse day by day.
This prompts us to contemplate the effects of long -term famine on humans, and in fact the study of the winter of the Dutch hunger, a period during World War II, which witnessed a severe decrease in food in the Netherlands, was one of the most famous evidence that famine does not end with feeding the hungry, but rather leaves an impact that may extend future generations.
In this range, researchers found that children who were in the stomachs of their mothers during starvation suffered from long -term health effects, such as increasing the risk of heart disease, diabetes and mental health disorders in later stages of life.
Genetic memory
It is believed that these changes are caused by genetic adjustments, which occurred to the mother and moved to the fetus, in response to malnutrition during its growth.
The concept of “genetic memory” indicates the possibility of the transmission of experiments, behaviors or features across generations through the genetic material, and while memory is traditionally believed that memory is an individual experience stored in the brain, some researchers suggested that very special experiences, such as severe hunger and disease, may leave biological fingerprints that are transmitted across generations.
We know that genes are simply the lips of life, found in the DNA, as if it is a book that carries directions to manufacture everything in the body of the organism, so you find here a group of genes responsible for the color of the hair, and another responsible for the length of the body, and the matter extends to the most accurate cellular structures in our bodies, and the rest of the living organisms.
The idea of genes’s memory indicates that our genes may bear signs of environmental pressure (such as starvation or malnutrition) that affect the health of future generations, their behavior or physiological functions.
Genetic expression
Genetic memory does not mean that memories (such as memories of certain events) are directly encrypted in the DNA. Rather, it indicates the possibility of the impact of environmental factors on what scientists call the process of “genetic expression”, and that these changes can be transmitted across generations. This is mainly explored by a process known as the science of creation.
The genetic expression is defined as a process in which information in genes is translated into proteins that perform functions in the body.
Simply put, genes can be considered as plans or instructions present in the DNA, while proteins are the tools or machines that implement these plans.
For example, if you have a gene responsible for the production of digestive enzymes in the stomach, this gene expresses itself when you eat food, then the protein of the enzymes is produced to help digest.
Above genes
At that point, “genetics above genetics” interferes, and monitors changes in genetic activity that does not include adjustments in the DNA sequence itself, but affects how genetic expression.
This can happen from mechanisms such as “DNA as an acid”, which is the process of adding a chemical group called methyl to the DNA, which leads to changes in how genes are expressed without changing their sequence, as the lying can affect the activation or stopping of genes, which affects cell functions and the development of living organisms.
When the organism suffers from hunger or malnutrition for long periods, its body adapts through changes over genetic help to deal with stress.
These changes can include changing metabolic tracks, by making them focused and briefly to conserve energy and give priority to basic functions.
Hunger can also lead to changes in how to express some genes involved in storing fat, organizing hunger, or glucose metabolism, and if these changes help the organism to survive under harsh conditions, it may be transmitted to children.
On the other hand, hunger is a form of severe stress, and then chronic hunger may lead to long -term changes in the genes of stress, which may affect how future generations respond to environmental pressures such as food scarcity.
Hunger can also lead to the weakness of the immune system, which may change the genes responsible for immune responses, and then if the individual passes this experience, despite the weakness of his immune system, the genetic adaptations that enabled him to adapt to his children may be transferred.
Even the brain
This is based on everything, as hunger, especially during the early stages of life, can affect the brain’s growth, in a way that appears in the future on the mood and cognitive function in children who have not experienced famine at all, but their fathers tested it.
This also appears in animal models experiments, where researchers showed that food tension can actually lead to inheritance of genetic changes across generations.
For example, mice that were exposed to a limited diet during pregnancy showed behavioral changes in their offspring, such as increased anxiety or nutritional behavior change, which have been associated with genetic adjustments in certain genes. These behavioral changes appear to have been inherited for the next generation, although the grandchildren were not exposed to the same nutritional restrictions.
It affects everything
Indeed, the parents themselves are taking place, as a team of scientists assumed, conducted experiments on mice in 2017, as researchers from St. Mary University in Texas restricted food eating in mice largely on three separate occasions during their life.
In the first two periods of starvation, animals lost 20% of their bodies. In the third famine period, which is the longest, it lost 30%.
The research team has found that the mice that suffered from starvation were the temperature of their bodies and blood sugar levels less compared to healthy mice underwent the control group.
This means that the physiological adaptations during hunger periods affected the state of mice after that, as if they were prepared for the upcoming famine, as its effort was kept the fat stored for energy better.
The study, announced at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Association at the 2017 Experimental Biology Exhibition in Chicago, indicates that the previous hunger periods affected the strategies followed by mice in the following hunger periods.
This indicates that hunger exceeds the time of starvation, and leaves a scar that remains continuous and has an impact on the lives of those who suffered from it, and even their future offspring.