Can the effects of nutrition be passed down from generation to generation? In a new study, Swedish researchers set out to determine whether childhood overeating influences descendants' risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

It has been theorized that a child who grows up with inadequate nutrition will become programmed to accept the atypical diet later in life. Does this "programming" reach further than a lifetime? Study findings say yes.

Three generations-born in Sweden in 1890, 1905 and 1920-were included in the study. Historical data was used to determine how much food was available during the 19th and 20th centuries, a time when meager crops made famine common.

It was found that when little food was available to fathers during their "slow-growth" period (SGP), which occurs before puberty, descendants had a low rate of mortality from cardiovascular disease. Having a paternal grandfather who had little food during his SGP was associated with a decreased risk of diabetes. However, when paternal grandfathers had a surplus of food during their SGP, descendants' rate of mortality from diabetes increased nearly four times.

Causes for the associations were not determined, but the study suggests that childhood nutrition, particularly among males, seems to have influenced the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease and diabetes in later generations.

European Journal of Human Genetics October 31, 2002;10:682-688

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

I was recently invited to the advisory boards of the Price Pottenger Foundation and the Weston Price Foundation. Both of these groups are committed to the application of sound nutritional principles that were championed by nutritional pioneers nearly a century ago. (Dr. Weston Price is the author of "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration," which I include in my most highly recommended books section; this book is one of the premier classics of nutrition, and is an absolute must-read -- and must-see, as the pictures alone are an outstanding resource -- for anyone with any interest in natural medicine.)

This research in this article is modern day validation of what nutritional pioneers have known for quite some time.

From Price Pottenger Foundation:

Francis Pottenger, M.D. was a physician in the 1920s who was dedicated to the cause of preventing chronic illness. He made significant contributions to the understanding of the role of nutrition in maintaining good health. His chance observation regarding the effect of foods on the mortality rate of cats led to his classic experiments in cat feeding. More than 900 cats were studied over ten years.

Dr. Pottenger found that only diets containing raw milk and raw meat produced optimal health. Cats on the all-raw diet had good bone structure and density, wide palates with plenty of space for the teeth, shiny fur, and freedom from parasites and disease. They reproduced with ease and were gentle and easy to handle.

Cooking the meat or substituting heat-processed milk for raw resulted in heterogeneous reproduction and physical degeneration, increasing with each generation. Kittens of third generation cats failed to survive six months. Vermin and parasites abounded. Skin diseases and allergies increased from an incidence of five percent in normal cats to over ninety percent in the third generation. Bones became soft and pliable; calcium and phosphorus content diminished.

The cats suffered from adverse personality changes. Females became more aggressive while males became docile. The cats suffered from hypothyroidism and most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine. They died out completely by the fourth generation.

The following diets were the basis of the study:

The Meat Study

• Adequate Diet A
  • 1/3 raw milk, cod liver oil
  • 2/3 RAW meat
• Deficient Diet B
  • 2/3 COOKED meat
  • 1/3 raw milk, cod liver oil

The Milk Study

• Adequate Diet A
  • 1/3 raw meat, cod liver oil
  • 2/3 RAW milk
• Deficient Diet B
  • 1/3 raw meat, cod liver oil
  • 2/3 PASTEURIZED milk
• Deficient Diet C
  • 1/3 raw meat, cod liver oil
  • 2/3 EVAPORATED milk
• Deficient Diet D
  • 1/3 raw meat, cod liver oil
  • 2/3 SWEETENED CONDENSED milk
• Deficient Diet E
  • RAW METABOLIZED VITAMIN D milk only
    • E1: From cows on dry feed
    • E2: From cows on green feed

Degeneration proceeded more quickly on Diets C and D. Diet E1 produced unexpected results-rickets and early death of male kittens.

The changes in facial structure and onset of degenerative disease that Pottenger observed in cats on deficient diets paralleled the human degeneration that Dr. Price found in tribes and villages that had abandoned traditional foods.

Dr. Pottenger tried to return degenerating cats to health. He found that it took four generations on raw meat and raw milk to bring the kittens of second-generation degenerating cats back to normal. This experiment could not occur with third-generation degenerating cats because they could not give birth to vi