Famine Effects Future Generations

By Walter Derzko

During the Holodomor conference - Contextualizing the Holodomor, held at the University of Toronto last week, the Holodomor was contextualised within our understanding of Soviet history, Stalinism, genocide studies, Ukrainian history and communism. One area that was left out were the impacts on the current generation, So, I posed a question if anyone in the conference audience knew of any research being conducted on the effects of the Holodomor on the children and grandchildren of famine sufferers. This field of genetics is called epigenetics. All I got was a combination of polite smirks, blank looks and no direct response to my question.

However, one graduate student from New York University did come up to me during the break, saying that he was interested in exploring this totally unstudied niche of the Holodomor.

A study initiated in 2008, by researchers at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health and the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, suggested that prenatal exposure to famine can lead to epigenetic changes that may affect a person’s health into midlife. The findings show a trickle-down effect from pregnant women to the DNA of their unborn children.

The research indicated that children conceived during the “Dutch Winter of Hunger” in 1944-45, caused by a food embargo on the Netherlands in World War II, experienced persistent detrimental health effects six decades later. The authors found that the children exposed to the famine during the first 10 weeks after conception had less DNA methylation of the imprinted IGF2 gene than their unexposed same-sex siblings. By contrast, children exposed to the famine at the end of pregnancy showed no difference in methylation compared to their unexposed siblings.

These findings support the conclusion that very early development is a crucial period in establishing and maintaining epigenetic marks. Epigenetic changes, while not altering the DNA sequence, can alter which genes are expressed. Genes that might otherwise be activated could be silenced by epigenetic changes or vice versa, and this could impact an individual’s risk for adverse health outcomes later in life. “These findings are particularly intriguing in light of our reports on increased rates of schizophrenia after
early gestational exposure to famine.” said researchers.   

 Anders Forsdahl studied the far north of Norway, and showed that when impoverished children suddenly became more affluent after the end of World War II, they were much more likely as adults to suffer heart attacks.

Earlier studies from Sweden, showed similar intriguing results that now stretch three generations from grandfathers to grandsons.  “Beginning in 1984, Lars Olov Bygren, a nutrition researcher at Sweden’s world-renowned Karolinska Institute started to assemble the pedigrees of 94 randomly selected people who had been born in Ȭverkalix, Sweden in 1905. The 20^th century saw rapid out migration from Ȭverkalix, so Bygren had to track the emigrants all over the country. It took four years to gather all the data, but the results were unprecedented. The “early influences” that gave late replies started much earlier than anyone would have imagined. They appeared to start, in fact, with the subjects’ grandparents. Among the 1905 birth cohort, those who were grandsons of Ȭverkalix boys who had experienced a “feast” season when they were just pre-puberty-a time when sperm cells are maturing-died on average six years earlier than the grandsons of Ȭverkalix boys who had been exposed to a famine season during the same pre-puberty window, and often of diabetes. When a statistical model controlled for socioeconomic factors, the difference in lifespan became 32 years, all dependent simply on whether a boy’s grandfather had experienced one single season of starvation or gluttony just before puberty. It appeared that verkalix grandfathers were somehow passing down brief but important childhood experiences to their grandsons.”

As far as I can tell, similar epigenetic studies have not been conducted yet on Holodomor survivors in Ukraine and subsequent generations. An interesting provocation comes out of this. Establishing a link back to Stalin, who was directly responsible for the Ukrainian Holodomor and the subsequent adverse health effects on surviving future generations could theoretically lead to a multi-generational class action law suite against Russia, since Russia declared in 1991 that it is the rightful heir of the USSR. Reparations over several generations would likely be in the billions of dollars and that would surely bankrupt the Russian Federation, in the same  way the USSR went bankrupt, due to artificially low oil prices that were orchestrated by Ronald Reagan, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Saudi Arabia in the 1980’s. Realistically, Russian politicians and diplomats won’t soon admit to it’s culpability and liability to the Holodomor, so we are unlikely to see this outcome, but it’s an intriguing notion to think about. Maybe Canada’s health care system, who has to take care of these multigenerational victims of the Holodomor, might join in on the legal proceedings. All in all, some people can thank Stalin for the increased rates of heart disease, diabetes or schizophrenia.