
Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Have Altered Stress Hormones - ohjeez
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/descendants-of-holocaust-survivors-have-altered-stress-hormones/
======
phren0logy
There have been a series of well-reproduced studies, in animals and humans,
looking at methylation of genes related to stress hormone receptors in the
hippocampus of subjects exposed to stress/abuse.

[http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v10/n4/full/nrn2629.html](http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v10/n4/full/nrn2629.html)

These changes can persist to their offspring.

This may be a pop science article, but the steady stream of these findings
suggests that there's some pretty ground-breaking stuff happening here. One of
my mentors in residency was betting that Michael Meany will pick up a Nobel
Prize for this work.

~~~
x5n1
I wonder why this is not more studied in the black population in the United
States.

~~~
dopamean
First let me say that I don't intend to speak for anyone but myself here.

As a black man who grew up in America (though not African-American) I have to
say that my immediate reaction to the idea of similar study being done to
explain the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, and other forms of institutional
racism on the black population makes me nervous.

On one hand I'd love to welcome such studies because they would (could?)
explain to many people the lasting effects of over 100 years of horrific
oppression on millions of people.

On the other hand it makes me nervous because blacks in this country spent
decades fighting not just for freedom but for equality. And not just equality
in the eyes of the law but in the hearts of their neighbors. I fear, perhaps
irrationally, that a study like this could serve to convince people that
blacks are in fact different. That our brains are not in fact the same as
other people in this country. That we are not equal.

And if it were possible to have a third hand I'd also have another thought
that may be somewhat controversial, particularly in the black community, and
it is that I'd be worried that the results of a study like this one would
serve to absolve many people today of their responsibility to essentially be
good people. The victimization of black people in America is well-documented
but I have to say I've often felt uncomfortable by how frequently it is used
as something to point to when we are just straight up unwilling to take care
of our own communities.

I'm rambling now so I'll stop but I hope some of that made sense.

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jacquesm
In the Netherlands we have a special class labelled 'second generation war
victim' which deals with some of the aspects of this: (Dutch link, sorry I
could not find any article in English)

[https://psychotraumanet.org/nl/tweede-generatie-
oorlogsslach...](https://psychotraumanet.org/nl/tweede-generatie-
oorlogsslachtoffers)

It explicitly mentions the earliest development as one of the important
criteria, but it concentrates on the psychological aspects, not on direct
physical links.

~~~
D_Alex
And then there is this...:

Male Holocaust survivors have a longer life expectancy compared to those who
didn't experience the Holocaust, according to a recent study conducted at the
University of Haifa jointly with Leiden University. The results have just been
published in PLOS ONE. This is the first study to examine data on the entire
Jewish Polish population that immigrated to Israel before and after World War
II, using the population-wide official database of the National Insurance
Institute of Israel. "Holocaust survivors not only suffered grave psychosocial
trauma but also famine, malnutrition, and lack of hygienic and medical
facilities, leading us to believe these damaged their later health and reduced
life expectancy. Surprisingly, our findings teach us of the strength and
resilience of the human spirit", said the leading professor of this research,
Prof. Avi Sagi-Schwartz, from the Dept. of Psychology and the Head of the
Center for the Study of Child Development at Haifa University.

...

One possible explanation for these findings might be the “Posttraumatic
Growth” phenomenon, according to which the traumatic, life-threatening
experiences Holocaust survivors had to face, which engendered high levels of
psychological distress, could have also served as potential stimuli for
developing personal and inter-personal skills, gaining new insights and a
deeper meaning to life. All of these could have eventually contributed to the
survivors’ longevity. “The results of this research give us hope and teach us
quite a bit about the resilience of the human spirit when faced with brutal
and traumatic events”, concluded Prof. Sagi-Schwartz.

Read more:
[http://www.universityherald.com/articles/4078/20130731/male-...](http://www.universityherald.com/articles/4078/20130731/male-
holocaust-survivors-longer-life-expectancy.htm#ixzz3fAJRl2ut)

~~~
vasilipupkin
sounds to me like regression to the mean. In a small population you are likely
to find all sorts of extreme scenarios

~~~
anatolyk
Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that only exceptionally healthy people
have managed to survive a concentration camp?

~~~
lawpoop
That would be the simplest explanation, but I think a complicating factor
would be that for the Nazi concentration camps, many people were murdered,
healthy and unhealthy alike, alongside those who perished by other causes.

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tokenadult
The headline of this Feb 12, 2015 blog post exaggerates how generalizable
these results are likely to be. By the way, do we have a direct link to the
published version of the study readily available? I just tried some of the
usual online steps for looking up the author's most recent publication on the
issue, but what I found was a repost of this _Scientific American_ blog post
(which is already a few months old). I study this research with a journal club
populated by leading behavior genetics researchers, and any preliminary
findings of this kind need a lot more replication before being publishable in
an astute journal.

~~~
clarkm
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18037011](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18037011)

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Torgo
Considering the incredible psychological impact of the Holocaust on survivors,
and how that would affect one's perception of risk in day to day life, I have
to imagine that these people probably passed that perspective on to their kids
while raising them. If someone were (understandably) raised to always feel
under threat, I could see that having an impact on what they're testing.

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daemonk
The "genetics" in epigenetics can actually be quite controversial. That is,
how epigenetic markers are inherited isn't very clear. In terms of DNA
methylation, there are methylation maintenance enzymes. But for histone
modification, how they are inherited (are they being inherited?) isn't very
clear. Would enzymes that perform a certain histone modification being passed
from mother to daughter cell during division be considered inheritance of the
marker? The "information" for the epigenetic marker isn't being passed down,
just the machinery is.

Anyways, there are still a lot of things to consider.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
As a mechanism though, epigenetics is quite real. My old lab in some soon to
be published results found a causal link between some chemicals secreted by an
organism and epigenetic traits.

~~~
daemonk
Sure. DNA/histone modifications do seem to serve some kind of purpose in gene
regulation.

I just find it a bit amusing that people seem to hold these two specific
mechanisms in such high esteem to invent a whole new term, "epigenetics" for
them; especially when the inheritance of these mechanisms isn't well
established. It's akin to the latest technological buzzword in the tech
industry.

I am just being nitpicky here, but semantically, the term epigenetics applies
to any mechanism that's not inherently related to the information contained in
DNA. Transcription factor binding to DNA is technically "epigenetic". Any non-
primary structures formed by DNA that produces some kind of function is
technically "epigenetic".

The conventional meaning of the term now in biology seems to only refer to DNA
modifications/histone modifications. It's just not a very precise term.

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spike021
I wonder if this is related to why I have essential tremor. It's something I
seem to have inherited from my grandfather, who survived the Holocaust and
went back with the US on D-Day. As far as I can tell, it skipped a generation
(my dad and his brother don't have it, none of my siblings do, and I don't
think my cousins do either).

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boards2x
Perspective (from the comments):

"Is this type of study also being done on the descendants of the Atlantic
Slave Trade?"

------
iaw
This is horribly disconcerting. In general the implications are that survivors
of severe trauma pass on hormonal alterations to their children, I wonder how
many generations this can be observed for.

~~~
zenogais
It's both good and bad. It's more proof that at least some life experiences
can produce heritable traits - typically called Lamarckism, and long
considered a discredited contender as an evolutionary theory. Whether these
traits are good or bad depends on the life experiences I suppose.

~~~
pervycreeper
This is not Lamarckism, though.

~~~
_delirium
It's a bit debated whether modern epigenetics vindicates some elements of
Lamarckism or not. Or at least it was a debate in the 2000s; I haven't
followed it recently. The consensus is probably no, but the question isn't
entirely obvious. Some books by Marion J. Lamb and Eva Jablonka are probably
the best-known arguments that results from epigenetics pose a challenge to the
gene-centered neo-Darwinian account of evolution, and have stirred debate. One
response among many, taking the opposite view, although in a fairly nuanced
manner:
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.372...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.372.7925&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

~~~
zenogais
Thank you for sharing this, fascinating read and interesting viewpoint.

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powera
A pop science article talking about how "a researcher in the growing field of
epigenetics and the intergenerational effects of trauma" found ...
intergeneration effects of trauma kind of sets of my
[https://xkcd.com/882/](https://xkcd.com/882/) alarm.

ETA: especially considering this theory in general has been massively
disproven twice (as Lamarck-ism and Lysenko-ism).

~~~
Houshalter
There was a radiolab episode awhile ago about a study in Sweden. They had
records going back centuries, of family trees and each years harvest. They
found that grandchildren of people who starved at the age of 9 had
significantly better life outcomes.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/251885-you-are-what-your-
grand...](http://www.radiolab.org/story/251885-you-are-what-your-grandpa-
eats/)

~~~
jongraehl
Fascinating. Also entirely consistent with genetic determinism by the usual
natural selection story - 9 year olds who survive starvation have bad-ass
genes, etc.

~~~
Houshalter
Kids were not dying of starvation, just malnourished. And it fits with the
epigenetic theory because 9 years old is when your sex cells form.

If it was just selection, the effect wouldn't be as strong, and should happen
regardless what age the starvation happens.

~~~
jongraehl
Dying vs. merely damaged is a red herring. Interesting fact re: 9 yo => making
eggs/sperm - good comment overall. "Effect wouldn't be as strong" why?

Re: 'regardless of age': you can't rule out genes that influence near-
starvation thrive/fail differentially at young vs teen ages. Nevertheless I
agree that this is suggestive evidence for "it's not just regular genetics".
Good analysis if it indeed applies to this case!

