
A vegetarian diet could cause long-term genetic changes - pitchka
http://www.sciencealert.com/vegetarian-diets-could-cause-long-term-gene-changes-research-shows
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onion2k
This isn't particularly surprising once you understand that your DNA isn't
immutable. Lots of things can change you genetically. For example, a male
smoker can have changes in his DNA that increases the probability that his
children could get cancer[1], and the grandchildren of a woman who smokes have
a higher risk of asthma[2]. _Everything_ that has a significant impact on your
body probably changes your genetic make-up in some small way.

[1]
[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247104.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247104.php)
[2] [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/elf-
gsh092515...](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/elf-
gsh092515.php)

~~~
LoSboccacc
Lamark got it right XD

~~~
louprado
And you got it wrong: Lamarck

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hiou
Title is misleading. This is across an entire population over generations.
Should be changed to something similar to that. This sounds like it happens to
an individual if they eat a vegetarian diet for a long period of time.

~~~
bcpermafrost
Title isnt misleading. The title literally said what its content contained.

~~~
eganist
A vegetarian diet carries a certain implication, specifically that we're
speaking about such a diet in one person.

"Widespread vegetarian diets among a population could cause changes over time"
is wholly different and apparently more accurate.

~~~
bcpermafrost
The implication is subjective.

The title said "A" Vegetarian diet. It never referenced whom, what gender or
the scope of the study, so in a literal sense, the title wasnt misleading at
all.

I took the implication "A" Vegetarian diet, as in any or all contexts with in
a long time period.

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tertius
"A" implies that the effect would be felt in a singular case.

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crpatino
Not if you know the difference between genotype and fenotype.

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tertius
And the Venn diagram for the target market of this website excludes those who
do.

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xbmcuser
They should have analysed Pakistanis with the Indians many of which few
generation ago were vegetarians before converting to Islam. Would really show
how many generation it takes for the dna to change etc

~~~
edge17
True, though there's a lot of this going on in just the Indian population as
well. Generally, people tend to eat more meat as incomes rise. That is true in
the west as well as the east.

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negamax
Upper (rich) class in India is mostly vegeterian, including current prime
minister. Historically, outclass eat meat as they were cut off from farm based
civilisation.

~~~
danans
That pattern, to the degree it exists, is relatively recent, compared to the
evolutionary time scale. It is no older than the religious encoding of
vegetarianism in India, which is ~2k years old, and even that was widespread
only at a later date.

A better explanation is to compare to other populations with similar
environments, like Africa. In fact the graphic in the article shows a
similarly higher rate of the alleles in question.

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thaw13579
For those who are interested, here's the article (open access):

[http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/03/09/molbe...](http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/03/09/molbev.msw049.abstract)

It's worth pointing out that here "genetic changes" means evolutionary
adaptation over many generations, not some sort of mutagenic effect

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pmyjavec
"there's also an increased risk of the creation of inflammatory acids linked
to heart disease and colon cancer, especially in combination with vegetable
oils."

But last week red meat gave us colon cancer!?!?

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dschiptsov
There. Is. No. Data. Flow. From. Phenotype. Back. To. Genotype.

It just does not work that way. Mutations could be favorable and unfavorable,
but there is no mechanism that "adaptations" are encoded back into genome.

Some random mutation which persisted in one population and wiped out in
another has been selected due to environmental factors, such as climate and
availability of food sources, does not imply that it is necessarily better or
advantageous for a different environment.

And, of course, a diet could not cause genetic changes. Mutations could be
selected in a population within some particular environment or wiped out in
another.

~~~
mjpuser
That isn't the claim they are making, because that would be a huge claim. I
think the author knows that the occurrence of mutations aren't present because
they are eating veggies. Instead, they mean they are being selected because
they are eating veggies.

~~~
dschiptsov
Correlation is not causation.

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ajarmst
Ok. Couple of points: (1) A vegan diet can't "cause" genetic changes. My diet
is a part of my behaviour, and short of exposing myself to lethal amounts of
radiation or carcinogens, I can't modify my genes with my behaviour. (2)
However, if we modify an organism's environment (by, say, restricting what is
available to eat), then over many generations, we should expect that
organism's descendants to adapt to that change. I guess more experimental
confirmation of evolution is nice, but it's not really very exciting. [Edit:
Minor grammar picks]

~~~
andyjohnson0
_"...I can't modify my genes with my behaviour."_

This is incorrect. Your behaviour changes your environment (both directly
and/or by exposing you to new/altered environments) and your environment
modifies how your genes are expressed. See the wikipedia page for Epigenetics:

 _" Epigenetics [...] is the study, in the field of genetics, of cellular and
physiological phenotypic trait variations that are caused by external or
environmental factors that switch genes on and off and affect how cells read
genes instead of being caused by changes in the DNA sequence. Hence,
epigenetic research seeks to describe dynamic alterations in the
transcriptional potential of a cell."_ [1]

These mechanisms act on an individual and are separate from Darwinian
adaptation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics)

EDIT: "and your environment modifies your genes" -> "and your environment
modifies how your genes are expressed"

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deepnet
Epigenetics is about gene expression, the genetic code isn't changed.

The Danish/ Swedish famine study that first proved epigenetics was real showed
that starvation during puberty affected the height of granchildren by
switching off genes that were still present. The third generation is
unaffected precisely because it is not genetic change.

Enviroment only affects genes by reproduction, successful genes are inhereted
or not - there is no change in genes during a lifetime - that would be
Lamarkism and he was wrong.

Lifestyle affects methlyation markers,which are added and change gene
expression for a few generations.

The underlying genes are not changed and are still inhereted, once the
methlyation 'wears off' everything will be as before.

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reptation
There are a lot of assumptions in there. For instance, those methylation marks
may in fact lead to changes in the DNA. Epigenetic silencing is possibly
associated with gene duplication:
[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-002-2446-6](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-002-2446-6)

