Children living in war-torn countries not only suffer from poor mental health outcomes, but war may cause adverse biological changes at the DNA level, which could have lifelong health impacts, according to a ground-breaking study.
Children living in war-torn countries not only suffer from poor mental health outcomes, but war may cause adverse biological changes at the DNA level, which could have lifelong health impacts, according to a ground-breaking study from the University of Surrey.
Surrey -- in collaboration with University College London, Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy and Applied Care, Lebanon, St Georges University Lebanon, and a leading international NGO -- found that children who had been exposed to war events showed DNA m changes at several sites and regions in the genome. Some of these changes were linked to genes involved in critical functions like neurotransmission and intracellular transport .
"All told, our study paints a clearer picture of the tragic cost of war, beyond the mental stress, for the many millions of children caught in the middle of it." DNA m is a natural process where small chemical groups, called methyl groups, are added to certain parts of our DNA. These groups act like switches, turning genes on or off or adjusting how strongly they are expressed. Importantly, this doesn't change the actual DNA sequence itself.
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