Womb as Paradise Lost

Womb as Paradise Lost – Foetal Programming
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Practical Part – Appendices
empirical support for the hypothesis that early-life environmental conditions can
cause epigenetic changes in humans that persist throughout life.” 422
In a press release (2014) LUMC affirmed the research of 2008. We quote:
“During the famine of 1944-1945 the availability of food fell to a quarter of what
a man needs. Yet when children were conceived that were born with a normal
birth weight. Advanced DNA testing of famine children has now revealed that the
genes that promote growth are tuned differently by them. This probably explains
why those in middle age have a higher risk of health problems.
The modifications to the DNA that have occurred in famine children do seem to
follow a special pattern: groups of genes work together to promote growth in the
womb, are tuned differently to them than to their siblings, who were conceived
before or after the famine and born ”.423
30.4 Conditions in the uterus
The investigated Hunger Winter Children were all around 60 years old at the time
they ceded DNA to the investigation. The growth genes are adjusted life, different
for people who are conceived during the Hunger Winter.
"Adjusting genes occurs largely in the first weeks after conception. The operating
system determines which genes are on and off is then tuned. This operating system,
also known as epigenetics, consists of molecular dimmers on the DNA.
Conditions in the uterus, such as lack of food or stress of the mother, can cause
422 Heijmans, Bastiaan T., op. cit. “... we used the ongoing Hunger Winter Families Study to investigate whether prenatal
exposure to famine is associated with persistent differences in methylation of the IGF2 DMR (...) whether periconceptional
exposure to famine was associated with differences in IGF2 DMR methylation in adulthood (...) who were conceived
during the famine 6 decades ago. The exposure period thus included the very early stages of development”.
423 Press Release, LUMC 2014.