Epigenetics: Influencing Health Inheritance

Twenty-five years ago, Doll and Peto (1981) published their milestone epidemiological estimates of avoidable risks and prevention of the cancer burden in the United States. Since then, many environmental and lifestyle factors beyond tobacco, diet, and infections have been associated with additional emerging pathologies such as heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.

Forty years earlier, Waddington (1942) defined epigenetics, which stresses that gene expression, not DNA sequenc…