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Comment by nickdothutton | Hacker News Reader

The East Germans did some very interesting research into the impact of stress and trauma (the sort of stress you expense while being area-bombed during the latter stages of WW2) on expectant mothers and their unborn children. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to have made its way online (I suspect a lot of it was unethical, so people are unwilling to cite it).

Edited for typo.

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There are other studies done on people who gestated and were born through the lean years of WW2 in Europe. They still have trouble with weight 50 years later, statistically. It seems like that prenatal and early starvation permanently changed how their bodies interact with food.

I think there may have been a stress response difference too but can't remember exactly.

Source: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Sapolsky. This whole book is about stress.

There was a study a few years back that looked at epigenetic shifts that persist for several generations in the instance of malnourishment of a pregnant mother - I think they were looking at Indian populations from around partition - the upshot was that the offspring was much more likely to be type 2 diabetic, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, as if you’re going to be born into a low calorie/famine environment, having elevated blood sugar is eugenic.

I do find more amusement over the false understanding of ulcers from the title than I should. Some examples, it turns out, just don't age well. :D

Yeah, it did make me think "are ulcers entirely caused by ulcers?"

what's the answer here?

Ulcers are known to be viral today. People literally got a Nobel for it. Used to, they were thought to be caused by stress.

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