Genetic Predictions - Height Edition

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A neural network doesn’t have prejudice, it may be using Peat principles for all we know. Obviously for any given environmental factor you can find a way for genes to influence it (example, protein quality for height -> genetic advantages in using bad protein). Doesn’t mean much. In addition the neural network might be using hundreds or even all the gene information it has, to make the prediction, instead of one or two genes as the old theory would dictate. At some point it becomes just “using environmental factors indirectly to predict height, but using genes as an instrument to monitor the environmental factors” (which is what the body does, pretty much).
 

haidut

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Aren't the genes always being altered and/or deranged by the environment?

Environment changes gene expression - whether they are activated or not. It does not change the genes per se, according to the so called mainstream evolutionary biology dogma, unless there is a mutation which apparently happens at random. So, environment determines the outcome pretty much regardless of what genes an organism has, since environment determines gene expression.
 

haidut

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Thanks! I think this exactly goes hand in hand with my point about anomalies of disease states found in individuals that otherwise are not found generationally. It tells you that the environment and diet is indeed severely shaping the outcome of a person's health state.

See @Such_Saturation comment above. Ultimately, it matters very little what genes you have because environment clearly determines their expression. I am not against genes, I am against the current fraudulent theory that genes are insulated from environmental influences and determine somebody's fate a priori. If you accept the Lamarckian version of evolution, then genes simply become a memory of past environments, not random changes without any guidance. Evolution IS guided by environment and the sooner this fake dualism of genes/environment dies the better science will be. The very idea of randomness and evolution (e.g. implies progress) are incompatible.
It has been shown in multiple human studies that a person's lifespan, health and unfolding of potential is a weighted average of their own environmental quality and the environmental quality of the last 3 generations of ancestors. Not sure if anybody has put hard numbers to this but it seems to be roughly 40% own enviromental quality and the remaining 60% distributed (in a weighted manner) to the last 3 generations with parents having about 30% weight, grandparents having 20% and great grandparents having 10%. Again, these are VERY rough approximations and they CAN shift if one's own environment is really good/bad. And keeping in mind that the life of each generation can be represented the same way with the preceding 3 generations, you can have a formula extending back to the beginning of the species with your bacterial ancestors from 4bln years ago contributing a minuscule value and your parents contributing a lot.
There are multiple documented examples (on entire generations, especially in Asian countries) where children outgrew in height their parents by several standard deviations due to dietary changes such as eating yogurt, which is a food very rarely consumed in the past in those countries. No genes can explain that effect, at least not on that timescale of 10-20 years. The theoretical prediction is that the chance of something like that happening is lower than a person spontaneously combusting. The idea of chance needs to go, there is no such thing.
Life is now, not in the past. Nature designs organisms to respond to current environment the most even though past memories are also taken into account.
Here is another interesting read.
Genes Do Not Matter (again) - Individuality Is An Inevitable And Unpredictable Result Of Development
 
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jb116

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See @Such_Saturation comment above. Ultimately, it matters very little what genes you have because environment clearly determines their expression. I am not against genes, I am against the current fraudulent theory that genes are insulated from environmental influences and determine somebody's fate a priori. If you accept the Lamarckian version of evolution, then genes simply become a memory of past environments, not random changes without any guidance. Evolution IS guided by environment and the sooner this fake dualism of genes/environment dies the better science will be. The very idea of randomness and evolution (e.g. implies progress) are incompatible.
It has been shown in multiple human studies that a person's lifespan, health and unfolding of potential is a weighted average of their own environmental quality and the environmental quality of the last 3 generations of ancestors. Not sure if anybody has put hard numbers to this but it seems to be roughly 40% own enviromental quality and the remaining 60% distributed (in a weighted manner) to the last 3 generations with parents having about 30% weight, grandparents having 20% and great grandparents having 10%. Again, these are VERY rough approximations and they CAN shift if one's own environment is really good/bad. And keeping in mind that the life of each generation can be represented the same way with the preceding 3 generations, you can have a formula extending back to the beginning of the species with your bacterial ancestors from 4bln years ago contributing a minuscule value and your parents contributing a lot.
There are multiple documented examples (on entire generations, especially in Asian countries) where children outgrew in height their parents by several standard deviations due to dietary changes such as eating yogurt, which is a food very rarely consumed in the past in those countries. No genes can explain that effect, at least not on that timescale of 10-20 years. The theoretical prediction is that the chance of something like that happening is lower than a person spontaneously combusting. The idea of chance needs to go, there is no such thing.
Life is now, not in the past. Nature designs organisms to respond to current environment the most even though past memories are also taken into account.
Here is another interesting read.
Genes Do Not Matter (again) - Individuality Is An Inevitable And Unpredictable Result Of Development
Yup, we're saying the same things: mine through a kind of logic and yours study based.
I don't at all subscribe to the idea of chance. "Chance" goes against the inevitability of structural pattern, which is found throughout the universe.

Really good stuff, thanks again man.
 

haidut

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Yup, we're saying the same things: mine through a kind of logic and yours study based.
I don't at all subscribe to the idea of chance. "Chance" goes against the inevitability of structural pattern, which is found throughout the universe.

Really good stuff, thanks again man.

Haha, sorry. This previous response was meant for @Mukem. Somehow I quote your post. I think we are on the same page:):
 

Peater Piper

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Ultimately, it matters very little what genes you have because environment clearly determines their expression.
Well, it matters a little bit, otherwise humans would be giving birth to rats, or dogs, or whatever else. Still, what I take from all this is that starvation/malnutrition can have a profoundly negative effect on height and development. However, it seems given adequate nutrition, genetic potential becomes more of a factor. Even in the study you posted about the Dutch and B&H, the difference between having wealth and eating animal protein, compared to poverty and abstaining from pork, was about 4 cm, or 1.5 inches. Actually, that seems like an argument FOR genetics. They have a higher genetic potential than anywhere else, and even in less than ideal conditions, they're still reaching impressive heights.
 
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jb116

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Well, it matters a little bit, otherwise humans would be giving birth to rats, or dogs, or whatever else. Still, what I take from all this is that starvation/malnutrition can have a profoundly negative effect on height and development. However, it seems given adequate nutrition, genetic potential becomes more of a factor. Even in the study you posted about the Dutch and B&H, the difference between having wealth and eating animal protein, compared to poverty and abstaining from pork, was about 4 cm, or 1.5 inches. Actually, that seems like an argument FOR genetics. They have a higher genetic potential than anywhere else, and even in less than ideal conditions, they're still reaching impressive heights.
"Genetic potential" seems like word-play to me. It was mentioned how at best genes are like memory reflections of how the external (environment/diet) has shaped the individual. But more over-arching is the trans-generational aspect and I think this is the critical part that is overlooked. Looking at a population in one period of time is looking at perhaps the genetic memory of either detriment or enhancing environmental factors, through time. Therefore, you still aren't looking at an argument for genetics i.e. a short snapshot of that history, but still what the genetics are "remembering" and expressing as a function of [past] environment.

Genetics: biological short-hand for past environmental events.
 

haidut

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Well, it matters a little bit, otherwise humans would be giving birth to rats, or dogs, or whatever else. Still, what I take from all this is that starvation/malnutrition can have a profoundly negative effect on height and development. However, it seems given adequate nutrition, genetic potential becomes more of a factor. Even in the study you posted about the Dutch and B&H, the difference between having wealth and eating animal protein, compared to poverty and abstaining from pork, was about 4 cm, or 1.5 inches. Actually, that seems like an argument FOR genetics. They have a higher genetic potential than anywhere else, and even in less than ideal conditions, they're still reaching impressive heights.

Yes, it matter for things like being a human vs. being a rat. Genes do not matter for disease, and no geneticist ever has been able to explain why wouldn't evolution simply select against "bad" genes if they were indeed causing disease.
The 4cm is not much as an absolute number but if the people with poor diet had no more than say 2 inches of standard deviation in height then it is a huge change. But as I said in another post of mine in this thread, there are other studies with Asian populations showing generations eating yogurt (which was a very recent introduction to the native diet) gaining height 3-5 standard deviations away from their predicted height based on parental/ancestral height. If I remember correctly, one study listed about 300 cases of children reaching heights of 6ft on average when their parents and any of their known ancesotrs/relatives reached at most 5'3'' with an STD of about 1 inch. Gaining 8 STD difference in height due to diet is no joke and simply shows that genes only matter when the environment is poor. It makes perfect sense in that case the organism to fall back to its default "memory" of past environments (aka genes) and subsequently the children of that organism would probably be even shorter than the parent.
Nobody is arguing against genes completely. They do have their role, but the genetic pool is flexible and adaptive just like everything else in this world, and has no role in the vast majority of chronic disease we face currently (cancer, diabetes, etc).
Again, it is just a weighted average of past environmental "memories" and the weights can be changed rather quickly (e.g. often in a single generation if the current environment is really good/bad).
Cancer is a very good example of quick, single-generation change trumping genetics - give cells are chronic high-stress environment and they eventually revert to their primordial purposes - to divide and grow, regardless of how anti-cancer the organismic genotype may be.
 
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Peater Piper

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"Genetic potential" seems like word-play to me. It was mentioned how at best genes are like memory reflections of how the external (environment/diet) has shaped the individual. But more over-arching is the trans-generational aspect and I think this is the critical part that is overlooked. Looking at a population in one period of time is looking at perhaps the genetic memory of either detriment or enhancing environmental factors, through time. Therefore, you still aren't looking at an argument for genetics i.e. a short snapshot of that history, but still what the genetics are "remembering" and expressing as a function of [past] environment.

Genetics: biological short-hand for past environmental events.
I think we're starting to get into semantics. Ultimately it's something being inherited, which is all most people mean when talking about genetics.

If I remember correctly, one study listed about 300 cases of children reaching heights of 6ft on average when their parents and any of their known ancesotrs/relatives reached at most 5'3'' with an STD of about 1 inch. Gaining 8 STD difference in height due to diet is no joke and simply shows that genes only matter when the environment is poor. It makes perfect sense in that case the organism to fall back to its default "memory" of past environments (aka genes) and subsequently the children of that organism would probably be even shorter than the parent.
I personally wouldn't look at it that way. Regardless of genes, you need building blocks to grow. If you have the blueprint for a house that requires 1k bricks, but you only have 750 bricks, what will you end up with? The other 250 bricks can't be pulled out of thin air. The body isn't necessarily making a choice based on past memory to be short. If it lacks the appropriate amino acids in adequate amounts, it can't sufficiently grow, no choice involved. In the case of the children, do we know what their parents' upbringing was like? I assume they were malnourished. What's more interesting to me is that the children still reached significant heights. Isn't that kind of arguing against the significance of epigenetic inheritance? The children clearly weren't stunted due to their parents' (apparent) famine.

It seems like we keep defaulting to starvation situations, but what about individual differences in populations where nutrition is sufficient? You can have adequate nutrition across multiple generations, and still have siblings that are more than 6" apart in height despite similar upbringings and diets.
 
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jb116

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I think we're starting to get into semantics. Ultimately it's something being inherited, which is all most people mean when talking about genetics.


I personally wouldn't look at it that way. Regardless of genes, you need building blocks to grow. If you have the blueprint for a house that requires 1k bricks, but you only have 750 bricks, what will you end up with? The other 250 bricks can't be pulled out of thin air. The body isn't necessarily making a choice based on past memory to be short. If it lacks the appropriate amino acids in adequate amounts, it can't sufficiently grow, no choice involved. In the case of the children, do we know what their parents' upbringing was like? I assume they were malnourished. What's more interesting to me is that the children still reached significant heights. Isn't that kind of arguing against the significance of epigenetic inheritance? The children clearly weren't stunted due to their parents' (apparent) famine.

It seems like we keep defaulting to starvation situations, but what about individual differences in populations where nutrition is sufficient? You can have adequate nutrition across multiple generations, and still have siblings that are more than 6" apart in height despite similar upbringings and diets.
I think initially it can seem like semantics but there is an important distinction to be made; it makes all the difference.
Traditionally, when they say "inherited good genes" the perspective is that the genes in and of themselves are the guiding force; that there is some random, mysterious ultimate and in-a-vacuum type expression that is gospel relative to the body in terms of a bio-energetic system. It invokes a kind of scenario where we are at mercy at random, chaotic forces and they are called genes.

If one says "inherited genes" however, we could acknowledge the inheritance of not a guiding force per se, but that which has been guided and now remembered. The significance is that through generational insults, bad environmental factors, and diet one inherits the state and snapshot of the guided but expressing genetic factor. The importance of this distinction has another important feature, that that inherited state can also be again guided and manipulated to change the living state. Another difference then that is deduced is that an inherited state does however make it more difficult and tricky to change but not impossible. So referring back to my original example that just as a first generational disease could arise due to bad inherited states, showing that genes are secondary to environment, they can also be changed for the better.

The practical difference here is the traditional outlook of genetics means "doomed" and "there is nothing that can be done...well, until we make profitable drug X specifically targeted for condition Y."
 

Blossom

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I think celiac disease is a good example for this conversation. I have a single copy of the HLA-DQA1 gene from one of my parents. Neither of them has celiac disease and they both eat gluten everyday. There was something in my environment that was different beyond just eating gluten and having the HLA-DQA1 gene that led to me developing the disease. If I control my environment by avoiding gluten I have no signs or symptoms of celiac disease. So there is more to it than simply having the gene and eating gluten. Also since I only have one copy my chances of developing celiac were apparently lower than someone with two copies. There's most definitely an environmental factor involved. I believe it was possibly hormonal in my case as Peat has mentioned or it could have been famine like conditions from anorexia as a teenager. 30% of people with European ancestry have the gene but only about 1% actually develop the disease.
 

haidut

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It seems like we keep defaulting to starvation situations

The Asian populations studied were not starving. They were eating their traditional diet and thriving on it. The studies were on Northern Japanese, Okinawans, and Vietnamese as far as I can remember. These populations have a lot of centenarians, so I doubt they were barely scraping by. And in those people, adding milk/dairy to the diet resulted in children that were so much taller than their parents and grandparents that some of them were even ostracized and had to go live in the big cities where there is more acceptance of large height difference due to presence of foreigners.
 
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jb116

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I think celiac disease is a good example for this conversation. I have a single copy of the HLA-DQA1 gene from one of my parents. Neither of them has celiac disease and they both eat gluten everyday. There was something in my environment that was different beyond just eating gluten and having the HLA-DQA1 gene that led to me developing the disease. If I control my environment by avoiding gluten I have no signs or symptoms of celiac disease. So there is more to it than simply having the gene and eating gluten. Also since I only have one copy my chances of developing celiac were apparently lower than someone with two copies. There's most definitely an environmental factor involved. I believe it was possibly hormonal in my case as Peat has mentioned or it could have been famine like conditions from anorexia as a teenager. 30% of people with European ancestry have the gene but only about 1% actually develop the disease.
Blossom, great example. Mine is similar with Crohn's. Nobody in any generation had it, it was a bizarre and mysterious thing for my family at the time.
 

haidut

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Blossom, great example. Mine is similar with Crohn's. Nobody in any generation had it, it was a bizarre and mysterious thing for my family at the time.

It's the genes man, I am telling you...Somebody in your family had the bad juju like 400 years ago and it manifests now. We better sequence your genome and start looking :):
I wish I was kidding, but this is basically how the story goes in all neonatal wards around this country. New parents are scared into submitting baby's DNA information for analysis but if you look at the fineprint the companies tell you pretty directly that none of these tests are definitive. If a result comes back positive it MAY mean the baby MAY have an increased risk for this or that disease. Do you see what this statement means? Nothing really, same as the statement that if clouds form it may mean that it may rain.
And of course most people take this to mean the baby will CERTAINLY develop the condition and happily agree to the suggested "treatment". One of the most evil scams I have ever encountered.
 
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jb116

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It's the genes man, I am telling you...Somebody in your family had the bad juju like 400 years ago and it manifests now. We better sequence your genome and start looking :):
I wish I was kidding, but this is basically how the story goes in all neonatal wards around this country. New parents are scared into submitting baby's DNA information for analysis but if you look at the fineprint the companies tell you pretty directly that none of these tests are definitive. If a result comes back positive it MAY mean the baby MAY have an increased risk for this or that disease. Do you see what this statement means? Nothing really, same as the statement that if clouds form it may mean that it may rain.
And of course most people take this to mean the baby will CERTAINLY develop the condition and happily agree to the suggested "treatment". One of the most evil scams I have ever encountered.
:facepalm::hilarious: It would be more culpable to jeans rather than genes!
It really is a twisted plot because even, as you said, it's already established that they aren't definitive tests. But guess what? When that environmental insult strikes, one can lean on and revert back to the gene theory/test and say definitively then, that "yup it was genes all along." Where at best and the most sensible approach is to perhaps use the gene information as maybe just a reference. Since if they can convey some kind of "memory" of an inherited environmental insult, may be that could be valuable information to take the right action and be around or take the correct environmental measures to ensure that reference of memory we have from that bit of info actually doesn't express itself or become "a certainty." :hammer:
 

Peater Piper

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The practical difference here is the traditional outlook of genetics means "doomed" and "there is nothing that can be done...well, until we make profitable drug X specifically targeted for condition Y."
I don't disagree with you. Even if genes were set in stone, environment can still change things for better or worse. However, if you want to apply Haidut's studies on rats or larvae to humans, being dealt a bad epigenetic hand is just about as bad as inheriting the wrong genes. Scrawny, small brains, lower intelligence, etc. Not exactly uplifting.

The Asian populations studied were not starving. They were eating their traditional diet and thriving on it. The studies were on Northern Japanese, Okinawans, and Vietnamese as far as I can remember. These populations have a lot of centenarians, so I doubt they were barely scraping by. And in those people, adding milk/dairy to the diet resulted in children that were so much taller than their parents and grandparents that some of them were even ostracized and had to go live in the big cities where there is more acceptance of large height difference due to presence of foreigners.
If you're talking about Asian centenarians, then you're talking about people who likely survived eating 1800 calorie diets with about 40 grams of protein per day, a lot less than the ideal 100-150 grams of protein recommended here. Do you really think that's optimal for growth? Two glasses of milk per day would increase protein by 40%. It's also extremely low in the proteins that may be pro-aging, but are also pro-growth. Ultimately it's probably an ideal diet for extreme longevity (if we are to believe all the centenarian claims), but of course it's not going to produce people of large stature.
 
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jb116

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I don't disagree with you. Even if genes were set in stone, environment can still change things for better or worse. However, if you want to apply Haidut's studies on rats or larvae to humans, being dealt a bad epigenetic hand is just about as bad as inheriting the wrong genes. Scrawny, small brains, lower intelligence, etc. Not exactly uplifting.

Definitely, being dealt a bad epigenetic hand ensues an up-hill battle in one's life.
The distinction however is important still, in that:

1) If it happens to be an epigenetic insult unique to that individual, more than likely something can be done about it with the right knowledge to turn health around 180° i.e. crohn's

2) If it happens it is a true generational, epigenetic bad hand, things can be at the very least tried that oppose the condition and support healthfulness and/or with this knowledge
there can be genuine efforts in guarding against further insult not just to the individual but future generations. Not only that, one must keep in mind of discoveries and advances in knowledge. It's been my opinion that it's only a matter of time (can't say when of course) where humans cement control over their health and body.
 

Arrade

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I probably ate more protein than my father as a teenager and grew shorter than him.
I really don’t think diet alters much, how many near anorexic men are above 6ft? That never exercise?

It’s kind of unhealthy to say height is determined in majority by environmental influences, and I don’t think it bears much weight.
Like another poster said siblings can be 1 ft in height difference while sharing the same diet and living conditions
 

Ella

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Aren't the genes always being altered and/or deranged by the environment? If genes can be "switched on and off" by the environment (food, stress, radiation, etc.) then things can quickly change from one generation to another and even during the organisms life. Do I have this right?

@schultz, you have it right. These are epigenetic changes where the bulky methyl group is attached to genes to stop transcription (DNA Methylation) or removed to prevent transcription (DNA Demethylation). These can accumulate or be removed from one generation to the next generation. These processes are influenced by environmental factors such as stress, nutrition, radiation etc.

It is clearly demonstrated in plants, where genes will be either "turned on" and "turned off" depending on whether grown on the high side of the hill, low side, how much sun, wind, radiation and nutrients.

Remember the agouti mouse experiment? These mice are genetically engineered to become obese, diabetic and tumorgenic. When mother agouti was fed a diet replete with b-vitamins, the agouti gene was suppressed and pups were born with brown coat and slim. The controls were born yellow and fat.

Mother's diet changes pups' colour : Nature News

The agouti mouse model: an epigenetic biosensor for nutritional and environmental alterations on the fetal epigenome

DNA methylation is not the only mechanism. Acetylation, phosphorylation and the hotly debated microRNAs. MicroRNAs are able to cross species barriers and influence gene and non-gene interactions. They may explain the mechanism and why certain plant species are highly prized for their medicinal properties in traditional and herbal medicine.

Plant MicroRNAs—Novel Players in Natural Medicine?
 

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