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Persistent epigenetic differences associated with prenatal exposure to famine in humans

Bastiaan T Heijmans1, Elmar W Tobi, Aryeh D Stein

  • 1Departments of Molecular Epidemiology, Medical Statistics, and Gerontology and Geriatrics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. b.t.heijmans@lumc.nl

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|October 29, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Early life famine exposure, like the Dutch Hunger Winter, can lead to lasting epigenetic changes. Specifically, prenatal famine exposure was linked to reduced DNA methylation of the IGF2 gene decades later in adults.

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