Hmm...<p>I have three children - and all are intelligent, beautiful well adjusted kids. 5, 7, and 15.<p>One thing I made a point of as each was born - I maintained as much physica contact with each immediately after birth. I didnt allow them to leave or be examined without me there, touching them.<p>I did it not for the posted reasons, but just beacuse it felt right to me.<p>ALso - I would hum and sing to them a tune while they were still in the womb.<p>As soon as they came out, I held them and sang and hummed the same tune to them. It immediately calmed them - with my first, she immediately relaxed and stopped crying whil the nurse took her vitals, measurements and pricked her heel.<p>It was magical.
The epigenome isn't some mystical thing, it's just a manifestation of the environment on cellular function. These kinds of sensationalist articles are exquisitely frustrating as a genomicist.
IIRC DNA methylation (sp?) is used in blood tests to determine the rate at which you are aging biologically. This article does claim that the children who are touched less <i>develop</i> at a slower in addition to having a lower DNA methylation. So in a sense, the less a child is touched, the slower the child ages biologically according to this marker and observation.<p>Anecdotally, there are environmental situations where animals can significantly increase life-expectancy but at the expense of delayed sexual maturity.<p>It would be interesting, but of course not conclusive, to see if these children experience puberty later and if they also live longer. Perhaps some neglect has some benefit.
Actual study this article is referencing:<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/development-and-psychopathology/article/epigenetic-correlates-of-neonatal-contact-in-humans/9BD9799A7C6E0859B93E092EA0727A4B" rel="nofollow">https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/development-and-psyc...</a><p>Abstract:<p>Animal models of early postnatal mother–infant interactions have highlighted the importance of tactile contact for biobehavioral outcomes via the modification of DNA methylation (DNAm). The role of normative variation in contact in early human development has yet to be explored. In an effort to translate the animal work on tactile contact to humans, we applied a naturalistic daily diary strategy to assess the link between maternal contact with infants and epigenetic signatures in children 4–5 years later, with respect to multiple levels of child-level factors, including genetic variation and infant distress. We first investigated DNAm at four candidate genes: the glucocorticoid receptor gene, nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1 (NR3C1), μ-opioid receptor M1 (OPRM1) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR; related to the neurobiology of social bonds), and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF; involved in postnatal plasticity). Although no candidate gene DNAm sites significantly associated with early postnatal contact, when we next examined DNAm across the genome, differentially methylated regions were identified between high and low contact groups. Using a different application of epigenomic information, we also quantified epigenetic age, and report that for infants who received low contact from caregivers, greater infant distress was associated with younger epigenetic age. These results suggested that early postnatal contact has lasting associations with child biology.
Even if this result is real (I smell bad statistics), it's completely useless.<p>All cells in our bodies have the same genome. But a hepatozyte and a neuron are very different cells, aren't they? The difference is that cells specialize, and they do so by selectively methylating their genome (not the only mechanism, but an important one), thereby modifying the expression of genes. So a liver has a very different epigenome than the brain of the same person. Now here we're looking at a study of the saliva epigenome, apparently the most important tissue they could come up with.<p>Then they don't analyze the epigenome in any interesting way. Generally, the more a cell specializes, the fewer genes are active. Expressing this as "more mature" is rather dumb. "More geriatric" would be equally appropriate. Does it not matter at all, <i>which</i> genes are methylated?<p>So, let's summarize the study properly:<p>"If you don't touch your child enough, his saliva with age more slowly."
Not too surprising that earliest experiences in life are going to color an individual's expectations of the world, and how to respond to it.<p>"consequences on the epigenome" as the article so charmingly puts it.
I think there is a high chance that is 100% bullshit.<p>Most likely has to do with confusing cause-and-effect.<p>It could be just as well that highly methylated babies cry more and could be more demanding or parents with highly methylated babies are themselves less tolerant to crying thus end up handling babies more.<p>The problem, they way it is being reported, and they way it lines up with pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo groupthink makes it stink. That's why it is newsworthy. People <i>want to believe</i> that handling a baby will change their DNA.<p>Same bullshit like papers like this:<p>- Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25dna.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25dna.html</a>
N = 100, and all of the physical contact data seems to have been reported through journaling by the parents. I wonder if that data is actually reliable.
So, just how mutable is the DNA? For the sake of the discussion, I don't know anything about DNA that I can say I didn't get from a sci-fi flick.
I initially misread as "How much a baby is touched _by_ leaves [leaves] measurable effects on DNA."<p>Leaving me with an idle question: has the effect of interaction with plants on child development been studied?
This interview sounds like unpublished bullshit, it would never stand reviewing. To claim this from the survey they conducted is just wrong. Every science student learns about the difference between causation and correlation.