Everything Epigenetics Hannah Went

We are entering a new phase of understanding how our social environments affect our biology, particularly how they influence the genes involved in brain development and function. This knowledge helps us see how experiences like stress, trauma, and isolation can cause changes at the molecular level that may increase the risk of mental disorders. On the other hand, we're also exploring how positive experiences induced by psychedelics, which create feelings of unity and insight, might lead to be...

Personalized nutrition tailors dietary recommendations to an individual's unique biological needs, factoring in genetics, lifestyle, and health conditions to optimize health, prevent disease, and maintain overall well-being. Central to this approach is the role of epigenetics, which studies changes in gene expression that do not involve alterations to the DNA sequence but can be influenced by external factors such as diet.For instance, certain nutrients can affect DNA methylation patterns or ...

Determining a newborn's due date traditionally relies on maternal reports of the last menstrual period and ultrasound scans. These conventional approaches can lead to uncertainties, especially when it comes to identifying deviations from normal fetal development that could impact research into the effects of preterm or post-term births on newborns.However, researchers, including Kristine Løkås Haftorn, have now developed a more precise method to ascertain newborns' gestational age through ana...

Machine learning models that use DNA markers can estimate the age of biological samples. However, understanding why these markers change with age is challenging because it's hard to prove that these changes cause aging-related traits. In this week’s Everything Epigenetics podcast, I speak with Kejun Ying who uses large datasets to find specific DNA markers that directly influence aging traits. We explore his recently published study which found casual CpGs that speed up aging and others that ...

The idea of the impintome is still foreign to many people. So, let’s start with a simple explanation.For the majority of genes, we inherit two functional copies—one from our mother and one from our father. However, imprinted genes follow a different pattern, as we inherit only one functional copy. Depending on the specific gene, either the copy from our mother or our father undergoes epigenetic silencing. This silencing process typically involves the addition of methyl groups during the forma...

Did you know that the Great Depression—the worst economic downturn in US history—impacted how fast individuals aged biologically decades later according to their epigenetic aging profiles?!Yep… you read that right. Results show that faster epigenetic aging later in life is associated with worse economic conditions, specifically, during the prenatal period, suggesting it may be a sensitive window for the development of later-life disparities in aging. As a result, early-life investments m...