Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
Epigenetics. 2011 Jul;6(7):798-803. doi: 10.4161/epi.6.7.16222. Epub 2011 Jul 1.
Human health tends to mirror gradients in social standing related to class, ethnicity and race. Past research in the social sciences suggests that environmental experiences related to social status contribute to these disparities, but the underlying biological mechanisms are only partially understood. Here, we review research related to three domains of environmental exposure that point to epigenetic contributions to health disparities: nutrition, psychosocial stress, and environmental toxicant exposure. Each exposure has effects that may persist across the life course and in some instances may be transmitted to offspring via epigenetic inheritance. Since epigenetic markings provide a "memory" of past experiences, minimizing future disparities in health will be partially contingent upon our ability to address inequality in the current environment. We suggest that future research in environmental epigenetics focus on establishing the reversibility of stress-induced epigenetic modifications, and also on identifying positive epigenetic effects of environmental enrichment.
人类健康状况往往反映出与社会地位相关的阶级、种族和民族梯度。社会科学的过往研究表明，与社会地位相关的环境体验导致了这些差异，但潜在的生物学机制还只是部分被理解。在这里，我们回顾了与环境暴露的三个领域相关的研究，这些研究表明了环境暴露对健康差异的表观遗传学贡献：营养、心理社会压力和环境毒物暴露。每一种暴露都有其可能会持续影响人的一生的作用，在某些情况下，这些作用可能会通过表观遗传遗传传递给后代。由于表观遗传标记提供了过去经历的“记忆”，因此，要想减少未来健康方面的差距，我们需要在当前环境中解决不平等问题。我们建议，环境表观遗传学的未来研究应侧重于确定应激诱导的表观遗传修饰的可逆性，以及确定环境丰富的积极表观遗传效应。
