People With Unhealthy Lifestyles Can ‘Pass On’ Obesity And Illness To Children Through DNA

Poor lifestyle choices can create genetic faults which are passed on to children and even grandchildren via our DNA, scientists have warned.

It could mean that people who live unhealthy lifestyles are condemning their descendants to lives of obesity or mental illness.

Previously it had been believed that the slate was essentially ‘wiped clean’ at birth.

University of Cambridge scientists have found a new biological mechanism by which the fallout from poor lifestyle choices and traumatic events can be passed on to future generations.

Five per cent of our genetic code carries traces of past events - including areas of our DNA code linked to mental illness and obesity.

Walfred Tang, lead author on the study, says: ‘Our study has given us a good resource of potential candidates of regions of the genome where information is passed down not just to the next generation but potentially to future generations, too.’

The study was published in the journal Cell.