Podcast: Does Breastfeeding make a Better Baby?

As the number of mothers rise in the work force, women are faced with a challenging issue. Should they breastfeed their babies or rely upon formulas? It is socially frowned upon to feed babies in public, but many offices do not contain rooms for pumping milk. Formulas are no always trusted to use for the delicate developing babies. There is debate over which is better for the child, formulas or breastfeeding. In both cases there is misinformation about nutrition. Now it is considered that breastfeeding contains the best amount of nutrients and vitamins for a developing baby. 

Podcast: Can Your Grandfather's Diet Shorten Your Life?

Epigenetics is the study of the hereditary changes in the phenotype. Phenotypes affect what you look like. Each cell has chemical tags (methyl tags)  that change the structure of the gene. Methyl tags can turn on or off active or inactive genes. For example in bees, while a bee is a larva methyl tags go to a worker bee and turns it into a queen bee with special abilities such as mating. Epigenetics is also associated with diet. Environmental stimulus and diet affect your children and future generations. Pregnant mothers who were living in New York during 9/11 and had post traumatic stress had children with less tolerance for stressful situations. Angelmen syndrome and protobilli syndrome are two completely different diseases but they are both caused by a missing gene. What is amazing it is like the gene has a memory, if you inherit it from your mother you get angelmen and if you inherit from your father you get protobilli. Stress, diet, smoking, drugs all affect your children and grandchildren. For example, cocaine addicted mice pass on memory problems to their children. Curing Alzheimer's, cancer, multiple sclerosis, mental disorders may be done by using and removing methyl tags on cells.