Environmental Epigenetics And Ovarian Disease

For those expecting a genetic "cure" to fatosity, here is another reason why it ain't gonna happen.

Washington State University researchers have found that ovarian disease can result from exposures to a wide range of environmental chemicals and be inherited by future generations.

WSU reproductive biologist Michael Skinner and his laboratory colleagues looked at how a fungicide, pesticide, plastic, dioxin and hydrocarbon mixtures affected a gestating rat's progeny for multiple generations. They saw subsequent generations inherit ovarian disease by "epigenetic transgenerational inheritance." Epigenetics regulates how genes are turned on and off in tissues and cells. Three generations were affected, showing fewer ovarian follicles - the source of eggs - and increased polycystic ovarian disease.

The findings suggest ancestral environmental exposures and epigenetics may be a significant added factor in the development of ovarian disease, says Skinner.

"What your great grandmother was exposed to when she was pregnant may promote ovarian disease in you and you're going to pass it on to your grandchildren," he says. "Ovarian disease has been increasing over the past few decades to effect more than 10 percent of the human female population and environmental epigenetics may provide a reason for this increase."

Given the increased complexity from epigenetic influences, it is just too complex to figure it all out.

Add this to the real, underlying, overwhelming fact that there is no genetic cause of overweight/obesity (dispositive of the issue except to the morons who believe in a genetic cause) and, if you have 0.1% of a brain or more, you will stop hoping and just lose the weight.

Of course, if you were that brainy to begin with, you would not have gotten fat.