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The external environment's effects upon genes can influence disease, and some of these effects can be inherited in humans. Studies investigating how environmental factors impact the genetics of an individual's offspring are difficult to design. However, in certain parts of the world in which social systems are highly centralized, environmental information that might have influenced families can be obtained. For example, Swedish scientists recently conducted investigations examining whether nutrition affected the death rate associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes and whether these effects were passed from parents to their children and grandchildren (Kaati et al., 2002). These researchers estimated how much access individuals had to food by examining records of annual harvests and food prices in Sweden across three generations of families, starting as far back as the 1890s. These researchers found that if a father did not have enough food available to him during a critical period in his development just before puberty, his sons were less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. Remarkably, death related to diabetes increased for children if food was plentiful during this critical period for the paternal grandfather, but it decreased when excess food was available to the father. These findings suggest that diet can cause changes to genes that are passed down though generations by the males in a family, and that these alterations can affect susceptibility to certain diseases. But what are these changes, and how are they remembered? The answers to questions such as these lie in the concept of epigenetics.

dice rolling game lesson plan for multifactorial disease cardiovascular risk

NIH Genetic Variation Activity- Are you susceptible? Dice rolling game to model cardiovascular risk. -pdf for handouts

Women who are overweight while pregnant are more likely to have babies who are biologically older than those born to women of a healthy weight. This could put the babies at a higher risk of developing chronic diseases later in life, and may reduce their life expectancy. Our biological age is linked to the length of our telomeres - bits of DNA that cap the ends of our chromosomes. Our telomeres shrink every time our cells divide, and continue to shorten throughout life. "Short telomeres have been associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis," says Tim Nawrot at Hasselt University in Belgium.

"I Heart Running" is a case study in which students diagnose the cause of exercise-induced tachycardia in an otherwise healthy, 27-year-old female. The patient, Sam, is a long-distance runner and realizes that her exercising heart rate reaches over 200 beats per minute. As the story of Sam's encounters with her physician develops, students are given results from multiple laboratory tests and detailed patient background information.  Students are guided through the material with a series of questions with the ultimate goal of determining the cause of the exercise-induced tachycardia that Sam experiences. The case study is based on actual laboratory results and was designed for students in an upper-level undergraduate Human Physiology course. In this activity students will learn about heart rate, cardiovascular physiology, and oxygen carrying capacity, and factors which influence these concepts, as they try to diagnose Sam.

Calorie restriction has long been studied as a way to extend lifespan in animals. It has been associated with the ability to reduce the risks of cardiovascular and other diseases and to improve overall health. Now, researchers at Chang Gung University in Taiwan have found that calorie restriction can ...

Because we want to understand what genes are required for blood vessel development, Courtney Griffin studies certain enzymes that help turn genes on and off. These enzymes are specifically involved in relaxing DNA that is normally tightly coiled up in our cells. Dr. Griffin is now an Assistant Member in the Cardiovascular Biology Research Program at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation after receiving her B.A. from Harvard University and her Ph. D. from the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

Life on Earth is intimately connected to the natural cycles of light and dark that make up a 24-hour day. For plants, animals, and even bacteria, these circadian rhythms control many biological functions. Humans can overrule their body clocks, but at a price: People whose circadian rhythms are regularly disrupted-by frequent jet lag or shift work, for example-are more vulnerable to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. There are various theories to explain these associations, and researchers now have a new player to consider: the bacteria that live in the digestive tract. According to a study in mice and a small group of human volunteers, the internal clocks of these gut microbes sync up with the clocks of their hosts. When our circadian rhythms get out of whack, so do those of our bacteria.

"Millions of people who suffer from less-intense sleep problems do suffer myriad health burdens. In addition to emotional distress and cognitive impairments, these can include high blood pressure, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. And recent research has suggested even mild sleep loss, the kind people often subject themselves to during the work week by watching late-night TV until midnight then rising before dawn, may lead to metabolic, cardiovascular, cognitive, and neurologic dysfunction."

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