Epigenetische Vererbung - Ist die Zukunft diabetisch?

Increasing prosperity, changes in diet and lack of exercise immediately come to mind when the world-wide epidemic spread of diabetes mellitus is the topic under discussion. However, there is no unequivocal correlation between an increased consumption of food and diabetes for each and every diabetic patient. This is where the epigenome comes into play - just that software influenced by the environment that controls large parts of the hardware, the actual genome, and which - as scientists have recently discovered - can be inherited. Thus, an important question is what environmental signals can operate the epigenetic switches that pass disease risks on from generation to generation and beyond? Do we set in motion a vicious circle through to diabetes by errors in nutrition and life-style? Is the future diabetic? Epigenetics, the inheritance of acquired properties outside of the primary DNA sequence, is a major topic of research at the German Center for Diabetes Research (GCD) [Deutschen Zentrum für Diabetesforschung (DZD)].