Epigenetics—Inheriting More Than Genes

You’re probably familiar with the phrase, “You are what you eat.” But did you know that you are also what your mother and grandmother ate? The budding science of epigenetics shows that our physical makeup is about much more than inheriting our mother’s eyes or our father’s smile.

We are accustomed to thinking that the only thing we inherit from our parents is genes—packets of information in DNA that give instructions for proteins. These genes determine our physical traits such as hair and eye color, height, and even susceptibility to disease.

But we also inherit specific “modifications” of our DNA in the form of chemical tags. These influence how the genes express our physical traits. The chemical tags are referred to as “epigenetic” markers because they exist outside of (epi-) the actual sequence of DNA (-genetics).

Let me use an analogy to explain. The following sentence can have two very different meanings, depending on the punctuation used. “A woman, without her man, is nothing” or “A woman: Without her, man is nothing.” Perhaps it’s a silly illustration, but it gets the point across.

The words of both sentences are the same, but the meaning is different because of the punctuation. The same is true for DNA and its chemical tags. The sequence of DNA can be identical but produce different results based on the presence or absence of epigenetic markers. For example, identical twins have the same DNA sequence but can have different chemical tags leading one to be susceptible to certain diseases but not the other.

Parents can pass down epigenetic markers for many generations, or their effect can be short-lived, lasting only to the next generation. Either way, the changes are temporary because they do not alter the sequence of DNA, just the way DNA is expressed.

Your behavior could change how your body expresses its DNA. Then those changes could be passed to your children.

What does this mean in practice? Your behavior, including the food you eat, could change how your body expresses its DNA. Then those changes—for good or bad—could be passed to your children! If you do something to increase your susceptibility to obesity, cancer, or diabetes, your children could inherit that from you.

In one experiment, mice from the same family, which were obese because of their genetic makeup, were fed two different diets. One diet consisted of regular food. The other diet consisted of the same food but contained supplements that were known to alter the chemical tags on DNA.

Normally when these mice eat regular food, they produce fat offspring. However, the mice that ate the same food with the supplements produced offspring that were normal weight. The parents’ diet affected their offspring’s weight!

Scientists are still trying to understand the details. The epigenetic markers that were modified by the food supplements appear to have “silenced” genes that encourage appetite. The parents’ environment—in this case, the food they ate before becoming parents—affected the weight of their offspring.

Certain types of medicine have also been suspected of causing changes in epigenetic markers, leading to cancer in the offspring of women who took the medicine. For example, a type of synthetic estrogen prescribed to prevent miscarriages has been linked to an increased number of cancers in their daughters’ and granddaughters’ reproductive organs.

Studies point to changes in the epigenetic markers related to the development of reproductive organs, which the mothers passed down to their daughters. This finding affirms the adage that “you are what your mother—or grandmother—ate.”

Epigenetics: A Problem for Evolution?

Until these findings, many evolutionists dismissed the ideas of Charles Darwin’s contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who believed that animals could acquire new traits through interactions with their environment and then pass them to the next generation. For instance, he believed giraffes stretching their necks to reach leaves on trees in one generation would cause giraffes in the next generation to have longer necks. Many science textbooks today reject Lamarck’s ideas, but epigenetics is a form of Lamarckianism.

Of course this is contrary to classic Darwinian evolution. The theory of evolution is based on random changes or mutations occurring in DNA. If a change happens to be beneficial, then the organism will survive via natural selection and pass this trait to its descendants.

Although evolutionists do not deny the reality of epigenetics, its existence is hard to explain! Epigenetic changes are not random; they occur in response to the environment via complex mechanisms already in place to foster these changes.

These non-random epigenetic changes imply that evolution has a “mind.” Creatures appear to have complex mechanisms to make epigenetic changes that allow them to adapt to future environmental challenges. But where did this forward-thinking design come from? Evolution is mindless; it cannot see the future. So how could it evolve mechanisms to prepare for the future?

But God does! God is omniscient (all-knowing), and He foreknew Adam and Eve would sin. He would judge that sin (Genesis 3) and the world would be cursed (Romans 8:22). God knew that organisms would need the ability to adapt in a world that was no longer “very good.” God likely designed organisms with epigenetic mechanisms to allow them to change easily and quickly in relation to their environment. These types of changes are much more valuable than random mutation and natural selection because they can produce immediate benefits for offspring without harming the basic information in the actual sequence of DNA.

Although we often hear that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” it should be said that “nothing in biology makes sense without the Creator God.” Epigenetics is an exciting field of science that displays the intelligence and providence of God to help organisms adapt and survive in a fallen world.

Tagalongs to Our Genetic Code

Our DNA includes additional components, which may sometimes be passed from parent to child at the same time as the genetic code. First are molecules attached to the DNA, called methylation marks, that turn genes on and off. Second are balls of proteins composed of histones, which the DNA wraps around. Histones and a portion of these proteins, called histone tails, regulate how the DNA is folded (and thus what is turned on or off).

The food you eat and other aspects of your environment can change these tagalongs. Then they can be passed down to your children and even your grandchildren, affecting the genes that are turned on.