Your Terrible Diet May Affect Your Grandkids' Waistline

Well this is just fantastic; not only does a bad diet affect you, but it may affect your kids (and your grandkids, and their kids...)

LiveScient reports that not one, but two new studies have found that our diets, whether healthy or unhealthy, may be able to change our DNA.

The first study mapped how diets affected sperm and egg cells in humans and other animals, pointing out that mothers who were pregnant during the Dutch famine at the end of World War II had children who often were susceptible to glucose intolerance and cardiovascular disease. Researchers at Spain's Paediatric Hospital Sant Joan de Déu also discovered that male mice offspring who were overfed had insulin resistance, obesity, and glucose intolerance; these traits were passed down to their offspring, even if their offspring didn't overeat.

A second study also examined how diet affects the chromatin, which LiveScience says "is like the chemical soup" where DNA works. The research there suggests that the changes in chromatin may affect DNA mutations, which could either be good or bad.

"It is possible that eating more omega-3 fatty acids, choline, betaine, folic acid, and vitamin B12, by mothers and fathers, possibly can alter chromatin state and mutations, as well as have beneficial effects... leading to birth of a 'super baby' with long life and [lower risk] of diabetes and metabolic syndrome," lead researcher Ram B. Singh told LiveScience. Excellent; so bad eating will increase the number of future diabetics, while good eating will create "super babies" to live longer than ever.