Grandchildren of smokers at risk

[maximus otter]

NEW research suggests women who smoke while pregnant are putting their grandchildren as well as their children at risk, writes Jonathan Leake.

The study suggests that some of the chemicals in smoke can permanently alter the DNA of those exposed to it in ways that can be inherited by smokers’ children, grandchildren and possibly subsequent generations too.

The researchers analysed asthma rates in both the children and grandchildren of women who smoked during pregnancy.

They found the grandchildren of such women had 2.1 times the normal risk of developing asthma. The children of women who smoked in pregnancy were 1.5 times more likely to develop asthma.

Dr Frank Gilliland of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California said: “These findings indicate smoking could have a long-term impact on a family’s health that has never before been realised.”

In Britain about a quarter of all women smoke, with the proportion rising among younger women.

Gilliland and his colleagues studied 338 children who developed asthma before their fifth birthdays, comparing them with 570 youngsters without the condition.

They found children whose mothers and grandmothers both smoked had the highest risk, with a likelihood of developing asthma 2.6 times higher than normal. The research will be published in Chest, a medical journal.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1562445,00.html

maximus otter

 

[mete]

Not surprising at all !! Poor parential diet also puts kids at risk as does our very chemicalized world.

 

[Mike Hull]

I agree with Maximus!
And while on the subject of permanently altering DNA, here's another scary bit of info that affects everybody one way or another.

A British(female) scientist who has been studying the after affects of poison gas on humans, as a specialty, found final living proof among the Kurds that sodom hussein gassed, that permanent damage was done to the brain, chromosones were permanently altered, and the DNA was changed.

The most obvious symptom of this is the mental health of those gassed.
They became exrtremely depressed, permanently(and that was only one symptom), as did their offspring, as will theirs.
It will follow their decendants down through time undiluted.


Remember, the gasses that hussein used against the Kurds were basically the same ones the warring nations used against each other during WWI, and hundreds of thousands on both sides were poisoned, and lived.

They have been passing these mental problems, as well as altered DNA etc., down through their decendants since that time.

And we wonder why mental health problems are on the rise. It's like the pebble in the pond ripple thing. It just keeps spreading.

My wife's paternal Grandfather was gassed three times in WWI(I've seen his WWI Marine records), and I've been able to see the effect on her whole family, including her for many years. It ain't pretty.

Nobody is going to do a news flash on this sort of thing, as it leaves governments open to having to pay huge benefits to mental health patients, that are decendants of those gassed.

Something to think about.

 

[Bob W]

I'm not suprised. There's recently been news about permanent DNA damage from long-term meth and heroin use.

Chemical abuse = bad.

-Bob

 

[DaveH]

WWI was more blistering agents rather then nerve toxins.

 

[yuzuha]

Probably not as bad as those brown clouds of auto exhaust and factory smoke that hang over our cities, as well as the agricultural chemicals in our food and water, but nobody wants to go there. Being anal about little problems lets us manufacture a false sense of security and ignore those huge thorny problems we can do little about, while letting us feel that we are actually doing something about it. Would you fly if the airlines killed 45,000 people a year? A lot of people are afraid of planes but think nothing of hopping into their cars. They have the illusion of being in control of a car, even though auto accidents do kill 45,000 people annually.

 

[Steve Hayden]

WWI was more blistering agents rather then nerve toxins.

If I'm not mistaken, the insecticide Malathion is, or is closely related to, the German nerve agent GB. This is a non-persistant nerve toxin that predated the modern nerve agents. I am sure the insecticide uses are more dilute than the military uses, but it is still widely used in agriculture as are the herbicides 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T, which together formed Agent Orange. These are used as Paraquat and Roundup.
Sure Agent Orange was used more highly concentrated in RVN than we use it on the fields, but threshold doses for toxicity may be lower than those for genetic effects

 

[alasome]

If I'm not mistaken, the insecticide Malathion is, or is closely related to, the German nerve agent GB. This is a non-persistant nerve toxin that predated the modern nerve agents. I am sure the insecticide uses are more dilute than the military uses

Actually it is not so much a matter of concentration; most if not all nerve agents and many pesticides are organophosphates. The inscetiscides are less toxic and less volatile. Of course this doesn't mean they are harmless. Haven't had one in a while but is not that unusual to get cholinesterase level requests at the hospital where I work in cases of suspected/known inscectiscide ingestions. That's how both kill; by knocking out the neurotransmitter system.

Anthony Lasome