Can the Food You Eat Affect Your Descendants’ Genes?

A recent study suggests that the same vitamins in spinach that perform instant wonders for Popeye’s biceps might pack longer-lasting effects, such as dictating the hair color and health of future generations. Your lunch order could make a bigger difference than you think. A 2006 study led by David Martin, an oncologist at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, tested whether a mouse’s diet alone can affect its descendants. The researchers fed meals high in minerals and vitamins—such as B12, which fortifies leafy greens—to pregnant mice that have a gene that makes their fur blond and also increases the Likelihood that they will grow obese and develop diabetes and cancer. On the new diet, the mice produced brown-haired offspring that were less vulnerable to disease. Even when the second-generation mice were denied the supplements, their offspring retained the improved health and still grew dark fur coats.

Martin’s study isn’t the first to note this type of generation-spanning phenomenon. In 2002, Swedish researchers digging through century-old records determined that a man’s diet at the onset of puberty affected his grandson’s vulnerability to diabetes. The study tracked 303 men, and those with an abundant supply of food were four times as likely to have grandchildren die of diabetes. Though far from exhaustive, the study indicated that genes are more susceptible to outside forces than has been commonly believed. But don’t start your teenager on that all spinach diet just yet—scientists warn that the influence of diet on human gene expression is not fully understood.

Nevertheless, Martin says, “The general implication for human health is an obvious one: An external agent can have an effect for a very long time. Given how long human generations last, the environmental exposures experienced by a pregnant mother can still have an effect 100 years later.”

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