Lots of people here stating that this is an epigenetic change rather than a change in the genetic sequence, which I think is missing the point somewhat.
Epigenetic changes are an important part of your genetic make-up. To give you an example, the only reason that your skin cells remain your skin cells when they divide, and your liver cells remain your liver cells when they divide, is due to the epigenetic make up. Their DNA is the same, but the cells are very different, and epigenetics pass that information along when the code is copied.
In the same way, these stress-related epigenetic changes are being copied down and inherited by the generation two under.
This is already known, I think it was first seen in the Swedish famine cohort. At that time it was not clear it was due to epigenetics, but there was a clear signal in the health of those descendants [1], published here in 2002.
Epigenetic changes are an important part of your genetic make-up. To give you an example, the only reason that your skin cells remain your skin cells when they divide, and your liver cells remain your liver cells when they divide, is due to the epigenetic make up. Their DNA is the same, but the cells are very different, and epigenetics pass that information along when the code is copied.
In the same way, these stress-related epigenetic changes are being copied down and inherited by the generation two under.
This is already known, I think it was first seen in the Swedish famine cohort. At that time it was not clear it was due to epigenetics, but there was a clear signal in the health of those descendants [1], published here in 2002.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/5200859