The Voyagers Log 02 - The dataset that should have never existed
- Igor Alcantara
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
580 calories a day. That was how much each Dutch citizen could eat in February 1945. Not because of a strict voluntary diet but because that was how much was imposed the Nazi Germany. Decades later, researchers were still finding traces of it in the bodies of people who hadn't even been born yet.
In this second episode of The Voyager's Log, Igor Alcantara is just outside Amsterdam to talk about the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort (DFBC). In the autumn of 1944, Nazi Germany cut off food supplies to western Netherlands. 22,000 people died. 4.5 million were affected. The women who were pregnant during those months had children who were later tracked by researchers for over 25 years. Those children had higher rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer in adulthood, even if they were otherwise healthy. The mechanism turned out to be epigenetic: early starvation had altered DNA methylation in ways that persisted for a lifetime.
It wasn't a planned study. It was a tragedy that left records, and someone thought to look.
This is the Voyagers Log. More locations to come. Stay tuned and subscribe to our channel!
Watch it now:
Comments