Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Pediatrics / 28.09.2018
Breastfeeding May Alter Gene That Influences How Children Deal With Stress
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Barry M. Lester, PhD
Center for the Study of Children at Risk
Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University
Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island;
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We know from rodent studies that maternal care or nurturing behavior can change the rat pups physiologic response to stress. More nurturing behavior makes it easier for rat pups to relax after stress. Not only that, these changes are permanent, they last into adulthood and there is evidence that these changes can be passed on to the next generation. With animal studies you can unlock the mechanism for this in ways that you can’t do with humans and we know from the rodent studies that the mechanism for these changes has to do with changes in gene activity.
Nurturing behavior controls a specific gene that regulates the infant’s physiological response to stress. In other words, we are looking at maternal behavioral programming of a gene that can make, in our case, a human infant less physiologically reactive to stress.
The physiological reactivity to stress that we studied was the production of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is part of the body’s flight or fight reaction, the body’s major response to stress and too much or too little cortisol can be harmful and is related to a wide range of mental and physical health disorders in children and adults. The concerns about separating immigrant children from their parents that we read about every day in the paper are based on this same physiological system, where brain structures that control cortisol production are damaged by the stress of separation.
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