Inherent trauma

Trauma (like from childhood abuse, family violence, or food insecurity, among many other things) can be passed from one generation to the next.

Here’s how: Trauma can leave a chemical mark on a person’s genes, which can then be passed down to future generations. This mark doesn’t cause a genetic mutation, but it does alter the mechanism by which the gene is expressed. This alteration is not genetic, but epigenetic.

“Epigenetics", in simplified terms, is the study of the biological control mechanisms of DNA— the light switches that turn genes on or off. The DNA itself doesn’t change, but how the sequence is read can vary wildly depending on which parts are accessible. Even though all the cells in our bodies share the same DNA, these markers can silence all the irrelevant genes so that a skin cell can be a skin cell, and not a brain cell or a liver cell.

This fine-tuning of gene expression occurs by epigenetics.

What does that mean?

In essence: epigenetics control how or why your genes are expressed. Animal and some smaller human studies have shown that exposure to stressors like immense stress or cold can trigger metabolic changes in subsequent generations.

Scientists published research on the Dutch Hunger Winter, an extended period of famine that took place towards the end of World War II when the Nazis blocked food supplies. Pregnant women were particularly vulnerable, and the famine impacted the unborn children for the rest of their lives. Scientists found that those who had been in utero during the famine were a few pounds heavier than average. (The thinking goes that the mothers, because they were starving, automatically quieted a gene in their unborn children involved in burning the body’s fuel.) When the children reached middle age, they had higher LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglyceride levels. They also suffered higher rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and schizophrenia. When scientists looked into why, they found that these children carried a specific chemical mark—an epigenetic signature—on one of their genes.

A 2015 study on the children of 40 Holocaust survivors found that they had epigenetic changes to a gene linked to their levels of cortisol, a hormone involved in the stress response. The study concluded that both parents and unborn children were affected on a genetic level.

In another experiment, researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling. The memory transmission extended out another generation when these male mice bred, and similar results were found. The resulting offspring, having grown to adulthood, had a heightened jumpiness to the cherry blossom smell, despite never having been exposed to it.

The researchers also artificially inseminated females using the sperm from the original fear-conditioned mice, to attempt to get rid of any possible socially transmitted effects between the fathers and the females. The results were the same, suggesting epigenetic inheritance rather than environment. The findings were also verified by comparing the epigenetic markers on the DNA of sperm, specifically on the gene responsible for detecting cherry blossoms. On the sperm of the cherry-blossom-fearing mice, there was less of the methylation that can silence genes, possibly pointing to a mechanism of how the information got passed down.

So all of the above (plus other studies done on mice) can suggest that we as humans can also inherited generations of fears and experiences..

If you are Afrikaans speaking you can go and watch this video on Epigenetics from Milk and Honey Ministries.

The point that I want to bring across today is that there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when it comes to Trauma. We have see that the Word becomes alive when we look at science too.

visiting the iniquity (sin, guilt) of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me. Deut 5:9

This is not God's doing, but man's sinful nature. We have eaten from the fruit of the serpent and we see the seeds germinate in may generations. This is why we must be careful with the gateways that we open. God says in His Word that He wants to heal us and bind up our wounds. Living outside of a covenant relationship with Him in certain areas of our thoughts, behavior and emotions open up doors/gateways. We have to be aware of this.

I want to post a few blog post about the different gates to the soul and body. So keep an eye out for more posts this week.

Blessings

Charmaine Snyman

YadaYah Holistic Health and Counseling