Epigenetics and Obesity 

Epigenetics and Obesity 

Identical twins don’t just share DNA; they also share a uterus. Might that help account for some of their metabolic similarities? “Fetal overnutrition, evidenced by large infant birth weight for gestational age, is a strong predictor of obesity in childhood and later life.” Could it be that you are what your mom ate?

A dramatic illustration from the animal world is the crossbreeding of Shetland ponies with massive draft horses. Either way, the offspring are half pony/half horse, but when carried in the pony uterus, they come out much smaller, as you can see below and at 0:47 in my video The Role of Epigenetics in the Obesity Epidemic. (Thank heavens for the pony mother!) This is presumably the same reason why the mule (horse mom and donkey dad) is larger than the hinny (donkey mom and horse dad). The way you test this in people is to study the size of babies from surrogates after in vitro fertilization. 

Who do you think most determines the birth weight of a test-tube baby? Is it the donor mom who provided all the DNA or the surrogate who provided the intrauterine environment? When it was put to the test, the womb won. Incredibly, a baby who had a thin biological mother but was born to a surrogate with obesity may harbor a greater risk of becoming obese than a baby with a heavier biological mother but born to a slim surrogate. The researchers “concluded that the environment provided by the human mother is more important than her genetic contribution to birth weight.”

The most compelling data come from comparing obesity rates in siblings born to the same mother, before and after her bariatric surgery. Compared to their brothers and sisters born before the surgery, those born when mom weighed about 100 pounds less had lower rates of inflammation, metabolic derangements, and, most critically, three times less risk of developing severe obesity—35 percent of those born before the weight loss were affected, compared to 11 percent born after. The researchers concluded that “these data emphasize how critical it is to prevent obesity and treat it effectively to prevent further transmission to future generations.”

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