Researchers in Melbourne are investigating the way human cells are known to have a "memory" and they discovered that a cell, when given a one-off sugar hit, will carry a related chemical marker for weeks.
"We now know that chocolate bar you had this morning can have very acute effects, and those effects continue for up to two weeks later," says Associate Professor Sam El-Osta, of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.
"These changes continue beyond the meal itself, and have the ability to alter natural metabolic responses to diet."
The studies were conduced in human aortic tissue, and in mice, with the same results.
Dr El-Osta said it showed how cells could remember and replicate the effects on the body of a poor diet.
It also provided fresh insights into why obesity and diseases such diabetes can run in families over generations - because the "epigenomes" in which cell memories were stored may be hereditary.
Dr El-Osta said the problem may not be the genes a parent passes on to their child but the epigenomes, which could come preloaded with the effects of a poor diet.
"Humans have only one genome and once the DNA sequence is written it doesn't really change, nor can we really control it," he said.
"Epigenetics is what makes our genome alive ... and makes it function normally, or in this case with a high sugar diet, abnormally.
"Potentially, this can be transmitted from one generation to the next."
Dr El-Osta said the work had re-emphasised the need for a healthy nutritious diet to "nurture our epigenomes for the future".
Source: AAP NewsWire
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