Did we really need a study to tell us that?  Apparently, we did.

Researchers looked at umbilical cord blood samples from 54 newborns and found that lower Socioeconomic status and education were highly correlated with shorter newborn telomeres.

Interestingly, since we are ‘reset’ to about 15,000 telomere base pairs despite the general age mother and father, the length discrepancy is probably a result of the in utero environment being more taxing on he unborn child.

It would be interesting to know to what extent epigenetic marks of “trauma” are coded by the increased stress of those mothers in this study. Apparently, memory of trauma from the Holocaust and the Cultural Revolution can be inherited through epigenetics.  Fascinating as is the general topic of memory being a form of prion “infection”

For more info on epigenetics, watch this video in which my identical twin patients became more identical after telomerase activation, leading us to believe that genetics is not destiny but rather the board game new from the box. How the game plays out, what pieces go missing, and what cards you lose is largely determined by environment.