title: Change in paternal grandmothers' early food supply influenced cardiovascular mortality of the female grandchildren.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study investigated whether large fluctuations in food availability during grandparents' early development influenced grandchildren's cardiovascular mortality. We reported earlier that changes in availability of food - from good to poor or from poor to good - during intrauterine development was followed by a double risk of sudden death as an adult, and that mortality rate can be associated with ancestors' childhood availability of food. We have now studied transgenerational responses (TGR) to sharp differences of harvest between two consecutive years' for ancestors of 317 people in Överkalix, Sweden.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The confidence intervals were very wide but we found a striking TGR. There was no response in cardiovascular mortality in the grandchild from sharp changes of early exposure, experienced by three of the four grandparents (maternal grandparents and paternal grandfathers). If, however, the paternal grandmother up to puberty lived through a sharp change in food supply from one year to next, her sons' daughters had an excess risk for cardiovascular mortality (HR 2.69, 95% confidence interval 1.05-6.92). Selection or learning and imitation are unlikely explanations. X-linked epigenetic inheritance via spermatozoa seemed to be plausible, with the transmission, limited to being through the father, possibly explained by the sex differences in meiosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The shock of change in food availability seems to give specific transgenerational responses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden. lars.olov.bygren@ki.se.
authors.forename: Lars Olov
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Bygren
authors.forename: Petter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tinghög
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carstensen
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Edvinsson
authors.forename: Gunnar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kaati
authors.forename: Marcus E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Pembrey
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sjöström
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000235:genetics / Q000401:mortality*; D004032:Diet; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D040582:Inheritance Patterns; D008297:Male; D039382:Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D009752:Nutritional Status / Q000235:genetics*; D010375:Pedigree; D012737:Sex Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology