How does obesity affect epigenetics?
Obesity is associated with unfavorable changes in the epigenome — the many compounds that tell the genome what to do. Weight gain can lead to changes in gene expression that favor development of type 2 diabetes, whereas diet and exercise can lead to beneficial metabolic changes.
What is maternal epigenetics?
Epigenetics is also a mechanism by which the environment, including maternal nutrition or chemical exposure during pregnancy can influence fetal and neonatal phenotype and disease development.
What is the link between maternal diet and epigenetic changes?
Maternal diets or nutritional compositions contribute to the establishment of the epigenetic profiles in the fetus that have a profound impact on individual susceptibility to certain diseases or disorders in the offspring later in life.
What is the association between obesity and epigenetic age?
Conclusions: Epigenetic age acceleration increases with BMI in VAT, but not in blood, as previously reported in liver. These results suggest that obesity is associated with epigenetic age acceleration of metabolically active tissues.
How does diet affect epigenetics?
Importantly, emerging evidence strongly suggests that consumption of dietary agents can alter normal epigenetic states as well as reverse abnormal gene activation or silencing. Epigenetic modifications induced by bioactive dietary compounds are thought to be beneficial.
Can the diets of parents affect their offspring’s epigenome?
Highlights. Diet and/or nutrition results in epigenetic alterations. Epigenetic alterations caused by diet and/or nutrition affect offsprings. Diet and/or nutrition lead to transgenerational and intergenerational inheritance.
Which of the following is an example of an epigenetic change?
Examples of epigenetics Epigenetic changes alter the physical structure of DNA. One example of an epigenetic change is DNA methylation — the addition of a methyl group, or a “chemical cap,” to part of the DNA molecule, which prevents certain genes from being expressed. Another example is histone modification.
What is epigenetic change?
Epigenetic changes are modifications to DNA that regulate whether genes are turned on or off. These modifications are attached to DNA and do not change the sequence of DNA building blocks.
Can maternal diet influence epigenetic regulation and prevent obesity?
As mentioned previously, maternal diets containing bioactive components that can influence epigenetic regulations have shown beneficial effects on prevention of many human diseases including obesity ( Li and Tollefsbol, 2010; Hardy and Tollefsbol, 2011 ).
Do epigenetics play a role in maternal malnutrition-induced negative gene expressions?
Remarkably, epigenetic mechanisms have been shown to play a major role in the regulation of maternal malnutrition-induced negative impact on relevant gene expressions, resulting in possible long-term consequences in the offspring ( Li et al., 2010 ).
Does maternal obesity alter the gut microbiome in the offspring?
Similarly, human studies also highlight this conclusion indicating that maternal obesity and over-nutrition can alter the gut microbiome in the offspring, which partially explains the consequence of an increased risk of obesity in children with obese mothers ( Chu et al., 2016a ).
How do epigenetic diets influence the initiation of epigenetic hallmarks?
These epigenetic diets can influence the initiation processes of epigenetic hallmarks during early life via maternal exposure leading to long-term effects on human diseases (Table 1 ). One-carbon metabolism is an important metabolic process for DNA methylation and has profound impact on the development of many human diseases.